Recently I was going through old military records and came across a narrative I had provided to the Army/Department of Veterans Affairs during my medical board process. It is from 2005, months after I had returned from my tour of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom 2 (2004-2005).

It is uncomfortable still for me to read my own words recounting my experience during that time in my life. I cringe at some of my words, and how I viewed my role as a member of the Military Police Corps, and with the benefit of almost twenty years separating myself from this young, confused, scared man not having a single clue what the years ahead would bring, I am grateful to be able to share my story.

Who knows, maybe this encourages someone else to share their story too. I hope so.

Thank you for taking the time to read my personal reflections.

-Rico

The following has been lightly edited for ease of reading, clerical errors, and to remove names of people I served with.

Narrative of SPC (RET) Ricardo Pereyda; The United States Army Military Police Corps (2003-2009)

-Fall of 2005: Ft. Huachuca – Arizona.

When we were in Kuwait I remember getting the Stars & Stripes and reading about all of the VBIEDs (Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device) and IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) that our troops were getting hit with, it was a hard pill to swallow knowing that in a few short days I would be right there with them. I remember having a feeling of dread. I guess it was from not knowing where I would be at or what our mission was exactly. We didn’t find out that we were going to Baghdad until about an hour before we took off from the base in Kuwait.

When we arrived in Baghdad it was huge. I mean just the airport was like a city within itself, it was barricaded in with armed guards at the front entrance. We didn’t receive any ammo and were loaded onto a deuce-and-a-half like sardines, and when we finally left the airport for our hardsite I remember thinking: “What are we doing, we don’t even have any ammunition. We’re outside the wire and we have nothing.” I didn’t realize just how big the base was. When we reached our “pad” as we called it, we immediately began our inventory of the equipment we would be receiving from the unit we were replacing. The NCOs were called to the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) for a briefing about the next day’s mission. They would be going on a series of ride-alongs with the other company we were replacing.

They would do this over a period of two weeks to learn the routes, and get a feel for what we would be doing. The drivers like myself would go along on the last day of ride-alongs. Throughout those two weeks we continued prepping our equipment, PMCSing (Preventative Maintenance, Checks, and Services) our vehicles, doing radio checks, and making sure we had all of the things that were going to be necessary. Throughout the year we acquired many things that were lacking, including; ammo, extra armor for our HMMWVs (Humvees), and extra body armor to name a few.

Those two weeks were nerve racking. We would sit outside of our rooms and listen to the sound of automatic gun fire and huge blasts, on a nightly and daily basis. It was hard being so close and hearing what was going on, but yet you could do nothing. It was just one of many occasions where I felt completely helpless. When we finally got our first mission, there was an electric feeling in the air, mixed with fear, doubt and a hundred other feelings that I don’t have the words to express at this time. I guess you could say that we felt that it was time to show what we were made of. We had all come to do a job, and now the moment had come to “put up or shut up.”

So we get this mission, and it’s a convoy escort mission to Camp “Anaconda” – Balad, Iraq. There were approximately thirty vehicles, at least fifteen of those were fuel trucks. I remember we left around 0800, my squad leader was in the lead vehicle, my vehicle was what we called “the rover”. Our job was to keep the convoy together and running smoothly. The last vehicle had the task of keeping vehicles from coming up from behind us, and to report to my team – the “rover” – if any of the vehicles fell behind, or were having problems.

This first mission was supposed to be a quick there and back, done in two hours. Well, that’s how it was supposed to be, as soon as we left BIAP (Baghdad International Airport) my squad leader said he was going to recon the route to see if there was anything up ahead that would present any problems. My vehicle took the lead position. Now keep in mind that it is 0800 and all of the city is on its way either to work, or wherever they needed to be. So needless to say the roads were jam packed and here we are trying to escort these vehicles, and keep them from getting separated: at the same time watching out for anything suspicious. We’re all spinning around looking at everything, it was overwhelming but I knew we had to maintain our composure. As my squad leader got further away and the radio signal was eventually lost, we could still see him but could not get in touch with him. Now we were starting to get antsy, my team leader was only on one ride-along to Anaconda and wasn’t quite sure about which exit to take.

We tried and tried to get in contact with our squad leader but by now we couldn’t even see his vehicle, so now it’s up to my team leader to decide where we are supposed to go. We came up to a turn and we took it hoping to see the lead vehicle somewhere, but we didn't. Instead we ran into one hell of a traffic jam. By this time we were getting a bit frantic, we had lost contact with our lead element and were now in a very bad situation. After about two minutes stuck in the traffic jam we decided that we needed to turn around. This is also a problem, being that we are transporting big rigs and tankers which have a wide turn radius. We finally got turned around by going over guard rails which had been smashed by a tank or something earlier, and back to the other side of the road. At this time my team leader decided we needed to make it at least to the “Green Zone” because he knew exactly where that was. So we proceeded to head toward the Green Zone, and at the bridge right before the main gate to the Green Zone a car bomb had exploded and it was pure pandemonium.

Everyone was yelling and cars were going everywhere; people were running not knowing if we were going to open fire on them or not. At this point one of the civilian vehicles in our convoy came to the front and said that he knew the route to Balad. We didn’t care how we got there at that moment, all we wanted was to get there and be done with the mission. So we made another u-turn and went over some more smashed guard rails in the process. When we finally got turned around and were moving smoothly we saw our squad leader’s vehicle on a bridge. We linked up with his team and completed that mission to Balad. I will never forget that day. People talk about a baptism by fire, well we sure had ours, or so we thought. The situation in the area would get much worse.

When we got back to BIAP we were briefed on the mission the following day and had an AAR (After Action Review) to go over, and learn from the situation. After the meeting I went to PMCS my vehicle to make sure it was mission ready for the following day. After I finished with my vehicle, I cleaned and PMCS’d my weapons as well as my gunner’s weapons and NVGs (Night Vision Goggles). This would become a daily ritual for the rest of the deployment. On the next day we woke up at 0530 for PT (Physical Training), showered, and got ready for the mission. After we were ready my duties were to PMCS my vehicle at least twice a day, once before our mission, and once afterward. The PMCS consists of making sure there is no new damage to the vehicle, and if there is to fix it. I would also check the tires for gouges and scrapes, as well as tread wear. I checked the lights, high and lows, turning signals, brake lights, made sure all of the ammunition was in a place that was easily obtainable, and that the radios were up and running. We would do radio checks before every mission.

After all of that we would rally at the TOC and get chow, then we would proceed to the KBR (Kellog Brown and Root) yard to pick up our convoy, get their numbers and check the condition of the MSRs (Main Supply Routes). Green is good-to-go; Red you’re probably going to get in some kind of contact with the enemy; and Black is where the MSRs are closed to all non-essential personnel – i.e. Military Police, tank crews, and Special Forces.

On April 8th, 2004 the routes were Red – I had just turned 22 on April 2nd. We left gate seven heading toward MSR Tampa. When we got out of the gate we could see eight or nine thick, black plumes of smoke and right away knew something was going to happen when we got to the MSR. As we approached the route, to the right (heading toward Fallujah) were 9 burning fuel tankers that had been ambushed. Our route was heading south in the opposite direction, so we kind of breathed a sigh of relief, but when we turned onto Tampa we made it through two checkpoints before all hell broke loose.

We were hit from both sides with small arms fire and RPGs (Rocket Propelled Grenades) and went through an entire check point in that manner. Then they started hitting us with mortar fire and IEDs. One IED hit right next to my truck and took out the front headlight. I was looking straight ahead watching the mortars being walked in on our position when a blast caught my eye. I saw a KBR truck swerve then another IED hit his passenger side, to which he instinctively swerved hard to the drivers side of the highway only to run full on into a large explosion. This happened right in front of our vehicle. Given the nature of my team’s role we followed the truck toward the passenger side of the highway as it slowly came to a stop underneath an overpass and the rest of the trucks in line filed past us with a sense of urgency.

When the KBR truck finally came to a stop I pulled up to the driver’s side so we could see if there was any assistance we could have provided, but the driver was already dead. He had been cut in half by the IED that impacted the driver side of his vehicle. There was nothing left of his body except for his legs and a mangled, shredded upper torso. Everything else was gone. The entire cab was filled with blood, flesh and bone. At that moment the reality of the situation hit. This was no game, these people really wanted to kill us. It was sobering. Thankfully this was the most planned out ambush we would face for the duration of our deployment. It was the day of the Mahdi uprising.

Our entire company got ambushed that day. When we came back to BIAP everyone was running all over the place in a fury. Our platoon sergeant approached us with a purpose in his step and told us we were going on a night mission and that we needed to reload our ammunition, clean our NVGs and weapons. We did and waited for almost an hour and a half before we were finally told the mission had been canceled, apparently after an artillery shell had taken out the target we were supposed to hit. I fell asleep that night with my mind going in circles about all sorts of things such as family, and the new girl I had waiting for me back in the states. I now had a new fear; that I wasn’t going to make it back alive.

After the uprising began we were given a new set of ROE (Rules Of Engagement). We were to shoot on sight anyone wearing all black with particularly colored head/arm bands, or anyone wearing the image of Muqtada Al Sadr.This was allegedly the uniform the Mahdi “Army” had chosen and were wearing across our AO (Area of Operation).

We went out again on the 9th, and 10th of April, 2004, and were only fired on three or four times, mostly harassing fire. Then on Easter Sunday, April 11th, 2004 we were placed as QRF (Quick Reaction Force). This meant our vehicles had to be on standby in case we were called out to assist personnel outside of the wire finding themselves in a bind as soon as possible. We monitored radio traffic until about 1000 in the morning when we received a transmission saying there was a downed helicopter. The exact phrase that they used was “an Angel has fallen” and then they gave us the grid coordinates, during which time we were already en route and out of gate 7. The scene was approximately fifteen miles from Camp Victory where our company was located.

When we got there, there were two M-1 Abrams tanks guarding the position, as well as the MSR patrols who were on shift that day. They had already set up a perimeter so no one could access the site. When we arrived we could see the Apache helicopter in the middle of a field. It was still on fire and cooking off its rockets and other ammunition that was onboard. My team was told to go around the perimeter and give the other soldiers MREs and water. The perimeter was not stretched out too far so as everyone was relatively close to the downed Apache.

At one point while making our rounds we came to within ten feet of the chopper. I was in the turret and I saw the two pilots still in their cockpit burning. They were already dead, probably died on impact, but the way they looked it seemed to me that their death was very painful. One of the pilot's arms were stuck straight out like he was trying to brace himself for the landing. It hurt that there was no way we could get them out. There was nothing that could be done, so we just sat at our position for about six hours until we were ordered to escort the Battalion Commander back to BIAP.

We linked up with the Battalion Commander’s PSD (Personal Security Detail) team and headed back to BIAP. We got half-way there and one of their trucks broke down and they had to take it back to the crash site. The Battalion Commander stayed with us, then out of nowhere his gunner opened fire on an individual in one of the fields near MSR Tampa. Immediately following this, my team leader engaged with two grenades from his M-203 attachment to the M-4 Carbine he was issued. Having eliminated the threat we hightailed it back to base, dropped off the Colonel and went back to our hardsite to monitor the radio for any other situations. Nothing happened that we needed to respond to, so we off-loaded our guns and other sensitive equipment from our vehicle, waiting for our mission order for the next day.

Throughout the rest of our deployment we would continue to run missions like this. I’m only going to provide one more example of a mission which particularly stands out in my mind. There are many. When I was in Iraq my squad went on over 300 missions. Sometimes we would go on two or three missions a day. Although that was a rare occurrence, it did happen. For the most part it was usually just two. We would take a convoy to their destination and when we completed that, we would pick up another convoy on its way back to BIAP. When we were on MSR patrol we would be out all day, we usually hit the MSR around six am and would come back at six pm. During MSR patrols the first thing we would do is what we called an IED sweep. This means that we go about 5-10 miles an hour in an offset formation and search the sides of the road for anything suspicious or out of place. During these sweeps we found several IEDs, but it seemed like for every one we found the insurgents would plant three more. They were really good at it.

While we were out on one of these sweeps we came across a large bundle of grass set perfectly on the side of MSR Tampa. We stopped about 200 meters from the bale of grass so that we could look at it from a safe distance. From a safe vantage point it looked like the bales you would see the locals harvesting, but there was no logical explanation we could think of for it to be there. It didn’t look like it fell off a truck, because there was no grass along the MSR, or near it. And the probability of a local national leaving it there was nil. So we called it in and reported our suspicion of an IED, requesting the services of a demolition team otherwise known as EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal). We blocked off the MSR on both sides and waited for EOD.

We must have been out there for a good two hours before they showed up (popular job downrange, everyone had a job for them). When they did arrive they went over to look at the site, they reported back that we had indeed found an IED and that they were going to be placing an explosive charge on it and blow it up. This took them a little while to do and when they finally detonated it, the result of the blast uncovered a secondary IED which was a five hundred pound bomb. Needless to say we were happy we had not gone past that bale of grass. It was just one of many situations where I felt that God was looking over us.

A COMBAT NARRATIVE

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A COMBAT NARRATIVE

I FOUND A PEARL HARBOR SURVIVOR ONCE…

C.B. & ME

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