Pedro Meza:
CLASS OF 1973
Belmont High SchoolClass of 1973
Los angeles, CA
Pedro's Story
Life
Today is 30 March 08, I am once again on military duty, but now I am in Farah, Afghanistan. Farah is close to Iran. I am still with a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). The work continues to be challenging and there is some danger involved, but not that bad at this time. When you hear or read about Winning the Hearts and Minds, that is what I do. I belong to a special group of military people that functions like the Peace Corps, but we carry weapons. The Peace Corps with attitude!
We go out in search of projects to do for the Afghans so that we can rebuild Afghanistan. That is why it is called a Provincial Reconstruction Team. In the past I have had some close calls, but I am grateful to say that the Taliban I have shot was with my camera. But they have shot at me with RPG, rockets, mortars and armor piercing bullets, kind of fun that I am still here and I will be honest while it scares me I enjoy it. But my greatest fear is harming civilians, I have seen enough of that and that its what haunts me the most. Specially the site of dead children.
In the past I was able to make peace with the Taliban and permitted to bring medical assistance to their families, now I am not sure, because I have a base commander that has no combat experience and she keeps my team locked down in the fire base. This makes the situation worse because the Taliban sees that as fear and has stepped up their attacks on Afghan government targets. The situation has gotten worse, the Taliban has taken more territory around us because of the poor decisions of our fire base commander. I do worry now, all I can do is pray and think positive and make the best of it. My team got into another fire fight with the Taliban and our vehicles to damage but only to our tires, but once we got back we were faced by the fire base commander that was pissed because we got into a fire fight. Her solution now is we will not go out on missions any more. Months have passed and now the Taliban controls more territory the Marines have been brought in to fight the Taliban because our commander will not let us go out on missions. On September 29, 2008 the Taliban got tired of us and came and mortared rocketed our fire base for 4 hours, we were not permitted to go out and attack the enemy because the fire base commander left and gave orders that my team was not permitted to leave for any reason; I took a blow to the head while avoiding the mortar rocket attack, I have lost a lot of my memory and ability to learn now, I now deal with constant dizzy spells and a weird sensation like I am vibrating and stuck between two universes, for those reading this I now see ghost or what I call things people animals from the other realms; perhaps dimensions.
It is now Jan 2013, I am h...Expand for more
ome now a lot has change for me I am now disabled due to a mild traumatic head injury along with knee injury; my Guardian Angel has been busy. My brain was damaged as well as the ability to reason, for the past three years I have been living a life forgetting every thing I do during the day only to do again the following day. I have taken up carpentry again and spend most of my time making projects for the house. The US Army has not retired me yet, so I continue to report in one weekend per month until some one decides to retire me. It is funny to think that my marriage to the US Army has been in effect since Nov 1973, I call it a marriage cause that is how it feels; after so many years I am tired but I do not know what it will feel like once we separate. I should add that due to the mild brain injury, knee injury, back injury and PTSD I was permitted to file for a medical retirement back in June 2011, and was expected to be retired by Feb 2012, but in Feb 2012 I was told my paper work got lost and had to start all over. I guess my separation was not approved yet; LOL.
I am now Sentinel that stand by the door waiting to be called out again, funny thing when I stop and think about it, there were times in Afghanistan and Colombia when I took the same position as the statue of the Sentinel. But now this Sentinel waits to be released from duty, it is now May 3, 2013 and I find my self caught in a Catch 22, by an individual that is holding up my medical retirement because when I was injured in the mortar attack in 2008, I failed to report and just got back into the fight. Had I reported to the clinic a Line of Duty report would have been done. Since it was not done one individual has decided that I was not injured and my brain injury did not happened, to prove that it did I looked up the Taliban website where they brag about the attack. How is that for a war, you can track the attacks of your enemy on their website.
I am on Reserve duty, I do it for points because I am now a disabled veteran on disability. Never expected to live to see this day, I always thought my end would come to and end on foreign soil. The Army reps were kind enough to inform me that they will be sending my medical retirement packet for evaluation; l hope that they let me retire. But will admit that I could still one more mission, but it would be a suicide mission, sounds crazy but to be honest it scares me to face life as an old man depending on another person to take care of me.
Feb 20, 2015,
I was official retired on January 15, 2015 due to injuries from 2008, and was finally told that the doctors do not know enough about mild Traumatic Brain Injuries to give me a good prognosis, other then to enjoy life and to possibly expect to forget more.
Pedro Meza
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