thedrifter
11-17-08, 10:16 AM
Called to protect
In Iraq or Amherst, Piekos has mates' backs
By Stan Grossfeld, Globe Staff | November 17, 2008
One in a series on courageous athletes.
AMHERST - When University of Massachusetts goalie Chris Piekos talks about sudden death, he means the horrors of war, not an overtime soccer game.
The Marine reconnaissance team leader, now 24, is a walk-on this year after completing two tours of duty in Fallujah, Iraq, where some of the fiercest fighting in the Iraq War takes place. Piekos, a sophomore, hasn't seen any game action this season because he's behind an All-American, Zack Simmons. But he was in the middle of a lot in Iraq, hunting down Al Qaeda operatives and killing, by his own count, 50 insurgents.
He won the Bronze Star for his heroic achievement on the night of May 17, 2006. He remembers every detail. It was a raid in Qarabawi. He kicked in the door of an insurgent's safe house, an old chicken coop. It appeared empty, except for a stockpile of ammonium nitrate, which is used in improvised explosive devices. But, behind a false wall, the enemy silently waited with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns.
Piekos moved to cut open one of the bags of ammonium nitrate.
"The moment I went to put my hand on my knife is when they unleashed everything on us," he said. "My corpsman was 3 feet away - the gun was trained on him. He took 11 shots point blank. He was dead before he hit the ground.
"I dove behind the bags of ammonium nitrate. And there was another guy deeper in the room, Sean - he got shot five times, two just missing his femoral artery, one in the back of the head.
"I thought they were shooting from the roof down. At that point I fully accepted death, and surprisingly enough - it's going to sound weird here - it was pretty peaceful."
It's hard to explain such things in an idyllic Massachusetts college town.
"What I tell people here is that it's like you're starting to leave class and it starts pouring rain," he said. "You start to run and you realize there's nothing you can do about it. You are going to get soaked. Finally you accept it and you just start walking normal. You're soaked."
There was nothing normal about that night. Pinned down in the darkness, he waited for the end. The other Marines stationed outside started yelling his name, but he did not answer, because to do so would betray his position.
"They nearly tossed in a hand grenade to frag the place," said Piekos. "They thought we were all dead."
Piekos finally made a run for the door. He said it reminded him of dodgeball games he played as a kid, the ones where you turn around and get nailed in the back. But this time he was lucky. He made it out.
The other Marines said he looked scary.
"They said my face was pale," he said. "They thought it was my ghost."
According to the citation written by US Marine Corps Lieutenant General J.N. Mattis, Piekos then made a courageous decision:
"Corporal Piekos unhesitantly led a counterattack into the building, personally retrieving the mortally wounded corpsman amid a continuing barrage of enemy fire. Knowing one of his Marines still lay inside, Corporal Piekos without regard for his own safety and under intense fire again led the team back into the smoke-filled building, providing effective suppressive fire which allowed others to rescue the critically injured Marine."
Piekos also killed four insurgents and may have wounded a top Al Qaeda operative who later was killed in an airstrike. He also recovered a computer loaded with valuable intelligence.
"It was their playbook," he says.
Returning home
Instead of studying Al Qaeda strategy, Piekos now takes sports management classes, but he's still unlike any other student on campus.
Just read his lips. Literally.
Piekos has a tattoo inside his lower lip. He got it when he returned to the United States. It also could be his nickname.
"Psycho," it reads.
He has Marine tattoos on his muscular arms and a metal wristband honoring Sergeant Mark T. Smykowski, a friend who was killed in a roadside bombing. He also hangs Smykowski's dog tags near his bed. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night reaching for a weapon that is no longer there.
"My rifle was never more than 6 inches away from me in Iraq," he said.
"It never bothered me to kill. I wanted to look the enemy of the United States in the eyes. I wanted to defend my country for my family and my friends."
Now he defends a soccer goal. The 6-foot-1-inch Piekos had to slim down from 250 to 220 pounds to get quicker.
UMass coach Sam Koch lights up at the mention of his name.
"He's been tremendous," said Koch. "He walked on, his attitude is unbelievable."
Koch says he will compete with sophomore Shane Curran-Hays for the starting position next year. Piekos's goals are higher.
"This team was in the Final Four last year," he said. "My goal was to make the team, now it's to be a starter. Next year it's to be an All-American. I think those are realistic goals. I've never settled for mediocrity."
Courage and duty
"Ever since I was a kid, growing up, I was more patriotic than the other kids," said Piekos. "Always playing war in the woods with my buddies. On snow days, I used to build forts and play war."
Sept. 11, 2001, changed his life.
"I was a senior [at Wachusett Regional High School in Holden] when 9/11 happened," he said. "That hit hard. That was a factor. I wanted to be over there. My mom was totally against it. She wanted me to get a soccer scholarship and go to college. So at first I listened to her."
He went to Rivier College in Nashua on a soccer scholarship, "but that wasn't where my head was at or my heart," he said.
John Orlando, who served in Piekos's unit in Iraq and is now an FBI agent, says Piekos is absolutely fearless.
"He's very courageous," said Orlando. "If it meant giving his life to help the guy next to him, he would do that."
Piekos's Marine unit called itself "Bravo 1 Death Dealers."
Once the unit kicked in a door of a brick house near Fallujah at 2 a.m. There were three insurgents sleeping on the floor. Rifles and grenades were nearby. Their wake-up call was Piekos peeling off his equipment, like a prizefighter stripping off his robe before a bout.
"I gave my gun and ammunition to somebody to hold," he said. "Took out my Rambo knife. I look them in the eye and say, 'You hate us. You want to kill me so much? Here I am. Try and kill me. I'm USA right in your face. You still tough?' And he just started crying. It was a grave day for them. For us, it's another day at the office."
Courage is something he learned in the Marines.
"The definition we use is that courage is the mastery of fear," he said. "You really don't have time to be scared."
He was injured three times by incendiary devices. The third time was the worst. He suffered some hearing loss.
"Everybody thought we were dead," he said. "There were high explosives under concrete, the concrete served as shrapnel. I got peppered a bit. I didn't tell anyone, took guys to the hospital that needed to go."
Some of the men were awarded Purple Hearts.
"I didn't put in for it," he said. "Unless I'm missing an arm or a leg, I'm not going to take it for a little hearing loss. I didn't want it."
He says he is not looking for praise.
"I don't need a parade to know what I did," he said. "One of the parents said, 'We appreciate what you did. Thank you.' Thanks, it doesn't happen much."
And the team loves having a Marine on defense.
"It's good for the team to see I have their back," said Piekos. "In our game against Vermont, our midfielder Ben Arikian got tackled dirty. I was the first one off the bench.
"I'm trained that it takes 32 pounds of torque to snap a human's neck. But that was never in my mind. I never planned on laying a finger on him. I just pointed towards my jugular [vein] and carotid [artery] in the neck and then towards them. They saw that and they got intimidated. I don't start fights.
"I'm really just a big teddy bear."
Stan Grossfeld can be reached at grossfeld@globe.com.
Ellie
In Iraq or Amherst, Piekos has mates' backs
By Stan Grossfeld, Globe Staff | November 17, 2008
One in a series on courageous athletes.
AMHERST - When University of Massachusetts goalie Chris Piekos talks about sudden death, he means the horrors of war, not an overtime soccer game.
The Marine reconnaissance team leader, now 24, is a walk-on this year after completing two tours of duty in Fallujah, Iraq, where some of the fiercest fighting in the Iraq War takes place. Piekos, a sophomore, hasn't seen any game action this season because he's behind an All-American, Zack Simmons. But he was in the middle of a lot in Iraq, hunting down Al Qaeda operatives and killing, by his own count, 50 insurgents.
He won the Bronze Star for his heroic achievement on the night of May 17, 2006. He remembers every detail. It was a raid in Qarabawi. He kicked in the door of an insurgent's safe house, an old chicken coop. It appeared empty, except for a stockpile of ammonium nitrate, which is used in improvised explosive devices. But, behind a false wall, the enemy silently waited with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns.
Piekos moved to cut open one of the bags of ammonium nitrate.
"The moment I went to put my hand on my knife is when they unleashed everything on us," he said. "My corpsman was 3 feet away - the gun was trained on him. He took 11 shots point blank. He was dead before he hit the ground.
"I dove behind the bags of ammonium nitrate. And there was another guy deeper in the room, Sean - he got shot five times, two just missing his femoral artery, one in the back of the head.
"I thought they were shooting from the roof down. At that point I fully accepted death, and surprisingly enough - it's going to sound weird here - it was pretty peaceful."
It's hard to explain such things in an idyllic Massachusetts college town.
"What I tell people here is that it's like you're starting to leave class and it starts pouring rain," he said. "You start to run and you realize there's nothing you can do about it. You are going to get soaked. Finally you accept it and you just start walking normal. You're soaked."
There was nothing normal about that night. Pinned down in the darkness, he waited for the end. The other Marines stationed outside started yelling his name, but he did not answer, because to do so would betray his position.
"They nearly tossed in a hand grenade to frag the place," said Piekos. "They thought we were all dead."
Piekos finally made a run for the door. He said it reminded him of dodgeball games he played as a kid, the ones where you turn around and get nailed in the back. But this time he was lucky. He made it out.
The other Marines said he looked scary.
"They said my face was pale," he said. "They thought it was my ghost."
According to the citation written by US Marine Corps Lieutenant General J.N. Mattis, Piekos then made a courageous decision:
"Corporal Piekos unhesitantly led a counterattack into the building, personally retrieving the mortally wounded corpsman amid a continuing barrage of enemy fire. Knowing one of his Marines still lay inside, Corporal Piekos without regard for his own safety and under intense fire again led the team back into the smoke-filled building, providing effective suppressive fire which allowed others to rescue the critically injured Marine."
Piekos also killed four insurgents and may have wounded a top Al Qaeda operative who later was killed in an airstrike. He also recovered a computer loaded with valuable intelligence.
"It was their playbook," he says.
Returning home
Instead of studying Al Qaeda strategy, Piekos now takes sports management classes, but he's still unlike any other student on campus.
Just read his lips. Literally.
Piekos has a tattoo inside his lower lip. He got it when he returned to the United States. It also could be his nickname.
"Psycho," it reads.
He has Marine tattoos on his muscular arms and a metal wristband honoring Sergeant Mark T. Smykowski, a friend who was killed in a roadside bombing. He also hangs Smykowski's dog tags near his bed. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night reaching for a weapon that is no longer there.
"My rifle was never more than 6 inches away from me in Iraq," he said.
"It never bothered me to kill. I wanted to look the enemy of the United States in the eyes. I wanted to defend my country for my family and my friends."
Now he defends a soccer goal. The 6-foot-1-inch Piekos had to slim down from 250 to 220 pounds to get quicker.
UMass coach Sam Koch lights up at the mention of his name.
"He's been tremendous," said Koch. "He walked on, his attitude is unbelievable."
Koch says he will compete with sophomore Shane Curran-Hays for the starting position next year. Piekos's goals are higher.
"This team was in the Final Four last year," he said. "My goal was to make the team, now it's to be a starter. Next year it's to be an All-American. I think those are realistic goals. I've never settled for mediocrity."
Courage and duty
"Ever since I was a kid, growing up, I was more patriotic than the other kids," said Piekos. "Always playing war in the woods with my buddies. On snow days, I used to build forts and play war."
Sept. 11, 2001, changed his life.
"I was a senior [at Wachusett Regional High School in Holden] when 9/11 happened," he said. "That hit hard. That was a factor. I wanted to be over there. My mom was totally against it. She wanted me to get a soccer scholarship and go to college. So at first I listened to her."
He went to Rivier College in Nashua on a soccer scholarship, "but that wasn't where my head was at or my heart," he said.
John Orlando, who served in Piekos's unit in Iraq and is now an FBI agent, says Piekos is absolutely fearless.
"He's very courageous," said Orlando. "If it meant giving his life to help the guy next to him, he would do that."
Piekos's Marine unit called itself "Bravo 1 Death Dealers."
Once the unit kicked in a door of a brick house near Fallujah at 2 a.m. There were three insurgents sleeping on the floor. Rifles and grenades were nearby. Their wake-up call was Piekos peeling off his equipment, like a prizefighter stripping off his robe before a bout.
"I gave my gun and ammunition to somebody to hold," he said. "Took out my Rambo knife. I look them in the eye and say, 'You hate us. You want to kill me so much? Here I am. Try and kill me. I'm USA right in your face. You still tough?' And he just started crying. It was a grave day for them. For us, it's another day at the office."
Courage is something he learned in the Marines.
"The definition we use is that courage is the mastery of fear," he said. "You really don't have time to be scared."
He was injured three times by incendiary devices. The third time was the worst. He suffered some hearing loss.
"Everybody thought we were dead," he said. "There were high explosives under concrete, the concrete served as shrapnel. I got peppered a bit. I didn't tell anyone, took guys to the hospital that needed to go."
Some of the men were awarded Purple Hearts.
"I didn't put in for it," he said. "Unless I'm missing an arm or a leg, I'm not going to take it for a little hearing loss. I didn't want it."
He says he is not looking for praise.
"I don't need a parade to know what I did," he said. "One of the parents said, 'We appreciate what you did. Thank you.' Thanks, it doesn't happen much."
And the team loves having a Marine on defense.
"It's good for the team to see I have their back," said Piekos. "In our game against Vermont, our midfielder Ben Arikian got tackled dirty. I was the first one off the bench.
"I'm trained that it takes 32 pounds of torque to snap a human's neck. But that was never in my mind. I never planned on laying a finger on him. I just pointed towards my jugular [vein] and carotid [artery] in the neck and then towards them. They saw that and they got intimidated. I don't start fights.
"I'm really just a big teddy bear."
Stan Grossfeld can be reached at grossfeld@globe.com.
Ellie