Michael Piro was born in Staten Island, New York on March 16, 1985. He has two half-sisters on his father's side and comes from a tight-knit Italian family. He served in the United States Army from 2005-2010 during the height of the Iraq War. Through his time in the military, Michael gained hands-on experience of war and learned the true meaning of being a soldier.
Michael lived with his mother and grandparents in their apartment in the Berry Homes, a form of New York City public housing but more commonly known as, “the projects.” His father was a non-existent part of his life leaving after he was only one-year old. As a young boy, Michael always had an interest in the History Channel, particularly watching military documentaries. One of his favorite hobbies was creating battle scenes with his lego collection.
Michael's military knowledge began at a young age. His grandfather was a Korean War veteran and often showed Michael medals and shared his war stories. Between frequently watching war documentaries on the History Channel and listening to his grandfather’s military stories, Michael's fascination with the military would carry on into his later life and aid in his decision to join the army. Throughout Michael’s childhood, his mother, Laura struggled with lupus. It caused kidney scarring and she eventually needed a kidney transplant. Following the transplant she was put on immune system suppressants to keep her body from rejecting the new kidney. These suppressants lowered her immune system which caused her to get sick often, sometimes needing hospitalization for something as simple as a fever. Laura worked a full-time job and was often exhausted by the time she got home. This caused Michael to have to grow up quickly and learn to do a lot for himself at a very young age. He held his first job at nine years old at a local pizzeria folding pizza boxes. He earned one penny for every box made. This was a scary time for Michael who often worried about his mother. Without a father around, he feared what the outcome may be if anything happened to his mother. During this time, Michael learned to be independent which helped him successfully transition when he moved out on his own. He became confident in his abilities to be self-sufficient and this was an important trait to have during his time in the military.
The morning of September 11th, 2001, Michael woke up late for school. He had just gotten off the bus when he thought he had heard something in the distance. Not thinking much of it, he continued on into school. There was an announcement over the loud speaker that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Shortly after, when the second plane hit, they knew that it was not an accident but an act of terrorism. Michael and his friends left school and went back to his house. On the bus ride home, they could see smoke in the far distance. Many had family members who commuted from Staten Island to the city for work. Consumed with anxiety, they immediately turned on the news when they got inside. He remembers it being one of the only times he and his friends were completely silent.
As they were sitting there watching all the chaos unfolding on the news, this became a focusing point in Michael’s life. It caused him to realize how easily something can change over nightHe held many memories going to the top of the World Trade Center as a young child. It was hard to believe that just like that, the Twin Towers were gone. With public opinion now in favor of war, President Bush was given the leverage he needed to go to war with the Taliban in Afghanistan. All the media coverage of the war stirred up Michael's fascination with the military once again. Without this event he may have never decided to join the army. In middle school, Michael started to become negatively influenced by his peers. Michael went on to attend New Dorp High School. It was largely segregated by not only neighborhoods but various ethnicities: Italian, Irish, African American, Puerto Rican, Albanian, and Russian. These divides caused a lot of tension within the school leading to daily altercations among students.
Through his time at New Dorp, Michael was exposed to great racial and ethnic diversity which helped him to connect to a variety of different people and helped him see past racial stereotypes. Around the age of sixteen, Michael made the decision to no longer continue attending New Dorp. Once Michael turned eighteen, he took a two-week course and completed his GED. By getting his GED, he was now able to meet the education requirements he would need to join the military. When Saddam Hussein failed to let the UN inspectors come into Iraq to search for nuclear weapons in 2003, the United States went to war with Iraq, opening up a two-front war. Once things started getting worse and the appearance of dead soldiers on the news became an everyday occurrence, the military was struggling to get people to join. On July 7, 2005 Michael enlisted as an army paratrooper. He decided he wanted to become independent and experience something that not everyone can just go and do. He signed a contract for three years of service and four months of training.
Michael shipped off for training in Fort Benning, Georgia. He completed the One Station Unit Training (OSUT), also known as infantry school, which is a higher intensity than basic training and lasts approximately fourteen weeks. Upon completion of OSUT, he went to airborne school, also located in Fort Benning, to become certified as a paratrooper. After three weeks, he graduated from airborne school allowing him to continue on and became a paratrooper for the U.S. Army. He received orders to report to the 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He would be joining Charlie Company, 2nd battalion, of the 505th parachute infantry regiment in the 3rd brigade. Before a brigade is able to deploy to Iraq, it must get certified at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) in Fort Polk, Louisiana. It is a month long training that culminates in a one-week live training exercise. This exercise simulates the conditions of being in Iraq. The brigade successfully completed this training and was able to deploy to Iraq. Through training, Michael was able to challenge himself. He learned how to work as a team and deal with feuding personality types. Basic training shaped him into who he is today, a man filled with strength and determination to aim high and succeed at whatever he puts his mind to no matter how difficult it may be. Set to station at PB Olson, a patrol base located within the city of Samarra, Iraq, Michael was part of what were considered to be among the forward most troops. The base was considered to be in a highly sensitive area due to the close proximity of historical locations such as the Spiral Minaret and the Al-Askari Shrine, better known as the Golden Mosque. This put limitations on what procedures and measures of attack could be taken. The use of air strikes and mortars in the city were highly restricted. If any damage occurred to these prominent locations, there could potentially be widespread uprising from the Iraqi people. Four months prior to Michael’s arrival in Iraq, the Golden Mosque had been bombed and damaged by Al-Qaeda to create a civil war. This not only led to escalated violence in the city but started a violent trent that later triggered the Surge in 2007.
At the time, Michael’s company was unaware how much worse they were getting hit compared to the rest of the army located outside of the city in larger “super” bases. His company was constantly under attack. They were hit with ambushes, car bombs, suicide bombers, small arms and many improvised explosive devices (IEDs). “I was being shot at and almost killed on a daily basis for fifteen months. It was complete and utter chaos.” The events Michael encountered during this deployment were a traumatic experience for him. After seeing the amount of violence that occurred in Iraq, he realized that the way the media portrayed the war on television was nothing compared to really being out there. On July 6, 2007, Michael and his platoon were preparing to go out on a small kill team mission. This is when a platoon is inserted into an area, generally abandoned buildings, unannounced to the population mainly for surveillance purposes. Besides carrying out day to day duties, Michael was also a mortarman. He was in charge of shooting back mortars, a form of projectile explosive, when the base got hit by enemy mortar rounds. While in preparation for the small kill team, the base got hit with mortars. Michael and his platoon sergeant went to set up the mortars for retaliation. When a mortar hits the base, there is a system that tells them where the round is shot from. As the two waited to receive data telling them where to shoot the mortar back to, another mortar round hit less than twenty meters away from them. As the impact knocked his platoon sergeant back, Michael ducked below nearby sandbags to avoid the incoming shrapnel.
After waiting a moment for the dust to clear, he picked up his sergeant and prepared the gun again. Another round hits - only ten meters away this time! Despite the difficult conditions, Michael was able to input the data and shoot mortar rounds back successfully. As a form of recognition for his bravery and determination to complete the orders given, Michael received the Bronze Star Medal. This was significant because it not only allowed him to feel recognized for all the hard work he was putting in for the army but also made him feel appreciated for the many times he had risked his life for our country. Later the night of July 6th, 2007, a “small kill team” operation was set to occur. The small kill team consisted of three separate teams with roughly seven people per team. Each team was set to occupy a different abandoned house within the city. Mimicking a night patrol, the platoon discretely inserted each team into the houses. They were set to stay in these houses for approximately two to three days. While in these houses, they watched for people placing IEDs in the streets. After Michael completed his shift guarding the stairwell, another member of the team came to relieve him and he went to sleep. While he was sleeping, a young boy walked into the building. This caused the mission to be compromised because it was assumed that he will tell people Americans were hiding in the abandoned house. Michael’s team called to be extracted and the first platoon immediately came to get them out. It was daytime at this point and everyone scrambled to get the team into the trucks. On missions, all the seats in the trucks are predetermined by “trip tickets.” Trip tickets have the name of where everyone should be sitting in the trucks. In the event that something should happen, people know who was sitting where in each vehicle. However, during the chaos, the squad leader threw everyone into trucks without following the trip ticket. After being placed in the lead truck, Michael headed back to base. On the way back he heard a noise that sounded like a blasting cap which detonates explosives. They continued to drive through a traffic circle when a huge explosion occurred to their rear; the third truck had hit an IED. As Michael ran back towards the third truck to examine the damage, he saw that his friend, Causor was killed in the explosion.
Up until that point, Michael had seen people die and experienced getting shot at, but it was the first time seeing a close friend die. This snapped him back into reality. He realized he was not invincible and that death was a real possibility. He became faced with the idea of mortality, something people don't usually think of in their early twenties. Michael took security and guarded the others as they gathered Causor’s body. Meanwhile, his lieutenant was in the process of hooking up the damaged third truck to tow back to base. It is military policy that no equipment is allowed to be left behind. The lieutenant was unable to get the truck hooked up and called for a wrecker to come and tow it. During this time, the team began getting shot at by the enemy. In an attempt to clear the parameter, the team ran to the surrounding houses to determine where the shots were coming from. Michael and another team member established an observation point on a nearby rooftop. The Quick Reaction Force (QRF) returned with a wrecker, however, when attempting to tow the broken down truck, it accidentally triggered another IED. Michael was knocked back from the intensity of the explosion. Now the team was left with both a broken-down truck and a wrecker. They called for a second wrecker to come tow the two vehicles.
In the 140 degree weather, Michael suffered from severe dehydration. Thankfully, the shooting died down, the second wrecker came to tow the vehicles and everyone got out of there. When Michael arrives back on base, he notices people staring at him. “They were all kind of staring at me. I thought it was just because I looked exhausted and was drenched in sweat, but then someone finally said to me, ‘Piro you’re alive? We thought you were dead.’ According to the trip ticket, I was supposed to have been in the third truck.” This event holds significance in Michael's life because had the squad leader put him in the correct truck, he may have been the one who died during the explosion. He still to this day is not sure which seat he was supposed to have had in the third truck. |