Rebuilding Iraq under fire
Matawan’s Angel Rivera returns after serving a year

Staff Sgt. Angel Rivera (l), Matawan, stands with John Evans, a New York City police officer and Matawan native, in front of the 404th Civil Affairs Battalion’s Headquarters in Kirkuk last May.

in Iraq in U.S. Army Reserve

BY MARC CAVELLA

Staff Writer

Angel Rivera is a quiet man. But in a country where people idolize movie stars and athletes perhaps Rivera — a 36-year-old U.S. Army reservist who spent the past 14 months away from his loved ones while serving in Iraq — is precisely the type of man that people should be taking a closer look at.

Rivera — so modest that he didn’t even mention the Bronze Star he was awarded for service to his country or the Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal (ARCAM) that he has been nominated for — first joined the Army Reserve in 1989, and steadily rose to through the ranks to become a staff sergeant.

"I always wanted to be in the military," Rivera said. He completed his basic training at Fort Knox, Ky. and began fulfilling the commitment he made to serving his country.

"It was good," said Rivera of his time at Fort Knox, laughing. "Better than Iraq, anyway."

Over the past 15 years, Rivera continued to put in the reserve-mandated one weekend of drills a month. He also spent time in Panama and served six months as part of the NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo in 1998.

The time Rivera spent in Kosovo was "no comparison" to Iraq. "It’s apples and oranges," he said. "Kosovo was a NATO peacekeeping operation. [Iraq] is a war. It’s the real thing, and it’s totally different."

Rivera was called to active duty Feb. 8, 2003, and shipped out from Fort Bragg, N.C., on March 12. It was a time, he said, of mixed emotions for Rivera and his loved ones, including his wife, Yamely, 33, and two children, Roberto, 12, and Angelica, 8.

"It’s a hard transition to be without my husband for a year," Yamely said, adding that the distance between the two offered her some new perspective.

"Emotionally, you get to evaluate yourself more," she said. "I have a better appreciation for single mothers after this."

The children also felt the effects of not having their father around.

"Roberto was more affected [than Angelica] because he’s older and he knows what’s going on," Yamely said. "It’s very hard to not have your father around for a year," but the family kept in touch as best they could, she added.

"My family was very proud that I was going to be serving the coun­try," Rivera added. But, at the same time, Rivera was "unsure of what awaited [soldiers going to Iraq] — there were a lot of uncertainties," he said.

Still, Rivera’s misgivings did not stop him from wanting to serve.

"I was eager to go," he said. "The nation’s at war, and I wanted to do my part and contribute to the ef­fort."

Cheryl Grosso, a neighbor of the Riveras who has known the family for the better part of a decade, said she and her family were also con­cerned about Rivera’s assignment to Iraq.

"We were sad for the family and the kids," Grosso said. "My children are close with theirs, and we were worried about [Rivera] because he was going into danger."

Upon his arrival in country, Rivera was assigned to the 404th Civil Affairs Unit, attached to the 10th Special Forces in Kirkuk, a city in northern Iraq known for its rich oil fields that was taken by Coalition forces in April 2003.

When Rivera’s unit first got to Kirkuk, "we set up a civil military operations center," Rivera said.

"We were [the 10th Special Forces] civil affairs liaisons with the people of Iraq," Rivera said, dealing in such issues as citizens who were displaced during the war, and the reconstruction of schools and other buildings.

"Basically, we dealt with any is­sues that came up within the gen­eral population," Rivera said. "For instance, our [unit] commander had infantry units whose main task was to patrol, while our main task was dealing with problems like gas shortages, schools needing to be re­built or repairing bridges.

"We worked with the local popu­lations to resolve those issues through funding from non-govern­ment organizations" such as the Red Cross and the Kurdistan Save the Children Foundation, which oper­ates out of England.

Another issue that Rivera’s unit also dealt with was people being thrown out of their homes by armed thugs. "A group of people were tak­ing people’s homes at gun point, so we had to go to those homes and [with the help of military police] and get those homes back to the rightful owners." It was, Rivera said, "absolute chaos."

The soldiers also faced poor liv­ing conditions when they first ar­rived to camp.

"We didn’t have hot meals for about two and a half months," Rivera said, noting that he lived on meals ready-to-eat during that time, as well as sampling the local cui­sine.

"It’s okay," Rivera said of the food, "but we got sick a lot."

Eventually, though, things got better.

"We built [the area] up," Rivera said, noting that conditions im­proved greatly after the first three months.

In addition to bearing these hardships, Rivera saw things that he obviously has a hard time speaking about to this day, including combat and mass graves of executed Iraqis.

"I saw some [combat] in Kirkuk," Rivera said modestly. Loyalists to Hussein’s Baath party were putting up resistance against the American forces in Kirkuk, and Rivera dealt with it firsthand.

"That first time — it happened so quick, and it lasted a long time," he said. "It was scary, but I don’t re­ally know how to explain it."

Rivera said the town had been quiet for about a month before loy­alists "started stirring the pot" on May 17. "There were riots and shooting everywhere," he said. "We had rocket-propelled grenades shot at us and small-arms fire, too. It was a mess."

During combat, Rivera secured a group of United Nations workers that had become caught in the fire. For his bravery, Rivera was awarded the Bronze Star, an honor awarded to soldiers who distinguish themselves through heroic or meri­torious service. These actions also earned him a nomination for the ARCAM medal, which Yamely hopes her husband receives.

Rivera also saw combat in the northwestern Iraqi city of Mosul some time later. A convoy Rivera was riding in was hit by an impro­vised explosive device, but no one was wounded.

But perhaps the most disturbing thing Rivera saw was a series of mass graves that Kirkuk residents took the American troops to after they had secured the city. Relatives of executed citizens dug up about seven or eight bodies, approxi­mately a week old, and brought them to the U.S. command center.

"We had to go out and identify these sites from the Hussein regime," Rivera said. "The first thing we saw was [family members] bringing the bodies to us, to prove to us that these people had been executed" by Iraqi soldiers before they had abandoned the defense of Kirkuk.

Coalition troops also discovered many bones and skeletons, some in the backyards of city residents, and called in the Red Cross to help make sense of the whole situation.

Eventually, Rivera received the news he longed to hear: His tour of duty in Iraq was over. He would be going home, but even this endeavor — much like the tours of every other soldier in the country — would be fraught with danger.

"We had to drive through the Sunni Triangle to get to Kuwait," Rivera said, referring to the region between the cities of Baghdad, Fal­lujah and Tikrit that is a stronghold for the Hussein loyalists. Rivera and his comrades had to pass through it during their three-day drive to Kuwait, "and that definitely put some fear in to my heart," he said.

Upon arriving in Kuwait, Rivera finally breathed a sigh of relief. "I felt human again," he said.

Rivera was then flown to Fort Bragg, N.C., on March 10, where he began the process of medical and dental checks required before being allowed to return home.

"There was a lot of downtime waiting to get that done," Rivera said. The process took about ten days, and eventually Rivera was reunited with his family in New York’s LaGuardia Airport, just in time for Angelica’s birthday party on March 15.

"It felt great," Rivera said of the reunion.

"We’re relieved that he’s home and that he’s safe," Yamely said. "We tend to appreciate each other a little more. It brought us closer to­gether as a family. We got through."

"We were overjoyed when he came back," Grosso said of Rivera’s return. "But I think everyone should know that [Yamely] did her part too, as far as being a hero is concerned. She really did a great job of keeping everything running."

In between catching up on all the time he had missed with his family and friends, Rivera found time to watch cable news channels’ coverage of the situation in Iraq.

"We didn’t see the media over there," Rivera said. "We wouldn’t watch the cable news stations [because] they’re portraying every­thing in a different way than it’s really happening."

"[Those stations] only show the negativity," Yamely added, who also stopped watching the reports while her husband was away.

Now, as Rivera settles back into civilian life, he remains uncertain of his future in the armed forces.

"I have two years of service left," Rivera says, "but I don’t know if I’ll re-enlist. I can’t afford to go away again. It’s too much."

But his thoughts are never far from those who are still serving in the Middle East and the world over.

"My main concern is supporting the guys that are over there now," he says. "We have to fight terrorism other than places like our streets. If we walk away now, they’ll bring the war to us. We cannot walk away."