Oral History Of Iraq & Afghanistan: Sgt. Hugo Patrocinio

As Told To Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.

Saturday, Nov. 22, 2008



Sgt. Hugo Patrocinio
26 Years Old
Marine Corps, 2000-2008
Served in Nasiriyah; Falluja area

• Oral History Project

Born in Lima, Peru, Hugo Patrocinio moved to the U.S. at 9 and joined the Marine Corps in 2000, at 17. He fought in Nasiriyah in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and redeployed to al-Anbar province in 2006. In his first week back, an insurgent attack left him with both traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

I have uncles that served in the Peruvian military, but I was the first one in my family to join the U.S. military.

I came in the Marine Corps in September of 2000. I was wounded in my second deployment in Iraq. I was medically discharged August 30th of this year, a few days away from completing eight years of active duty. A couple of weeks ago, I received a letter from the VA [assigning a disability rating of] 90 percent.

I can honestly say I'm doing a lot better now, but the brain injury that I had and the problems I had with the PTSD and everything were really, really severe at one point.

In the original invasion in 2003, I was in the battle of an-Nasiriyah. We were one of the first units to go through the line of departure [into Iraq]. The 1st Marine Division led the way; we were attached to the 1st Marine Division. In the assembly area, we did see the Scud missiles being fired at our direction. We had to go full MOPP gear [mission-oriented protective posture; i.e. biochemical suits] when the Scuds were in up in the air.

We were in the seven-tons [trucks]. Back then, there was no armor for the vehicles. Some guys had the luxury of having metal plates, but we just had sandbags. IEDs didn't start up until 2004 -- our main concern was the mines.

When we went through the line of departure, there was no actual resistance until [March] 22nd. We were right at the outskirts of Nasiriyah. Those four or five days were a lot of intense fighting, just constant. As we took control of Nasiriyah, after a couple of days of fighting, things calmed down.

I was a newly promoted corporal. My first combat experience was getting ambushed in "Ambush Alley," the route that went right along Nasiriyah where all the units that went were getting ambushed.

It felt like an hour -- or maybe 10 minutes. To be honest, I can't really tell you. Small arms fire, machine gun fire, a couple of RPGs, mortars at the same time -- the mortars weren't very effective, but they were landing all around us.

When we got ambushed, we pretty much dismounted our vehicles and tried to push into the ambush. We fought 'em off.

We got the whole battalion dug in that night, 50-75 meters away from the road. We kept getting probed, kept getting contact, all night. I don't think we slept for the first three days at all -- maybe an hour or two a night.

We had MREs [meals ready to eat]. The problem was, we were one of the first waves. There was not much resupply, so everything you had, you carried on your back. All the ammo, all the food, all the water, plus the MOPP suits, which retain a lot of heat, an incredible amount of heat. The weather in Iraq is really extreme, really hot during the day and really cold at night. The conditions were horrible, sleeping in fighting holes with all this gear, having to carry everything around.

The next day, the RPG [threat] was so high that we couldn't use our vehicles, so we pretty much had to walk everywhere. The following day was when we actually went into the assault. We took over Baath Party headquarters, found a lot of intel. We found torture chambers.

[Throughout the battle for Nasiriyah,] you would have incidents, contact. Maybe just a couple of shots; an hour or two later could be something that could last a good 15, 20, 30 minutes. It was just constant. They would probe us just to see how we would react.

We were very fortunate. We had a great company commander, we were really tight, so luckily we didn't take any casualties. In the battalion there was a few casualties, but in my company we didn't take any casualties.

We had a whole artillery battery in support of us, fixed-wing [aircraft], the Cobras [attack helicopters]. Our companies have our own mortars so there was a lot of firepower.

We have our rules of engagement and we always try to minimize collateral damage; the last thing you want to do as U.S. Marines, you don't want to hurt innocent people. [But] from what I know, it did happen.

We did see some civilian casualties, and it was surprising, I remember people coming towards our defensive positions, begging us not to leave, because they were afraid that Saddam would come back. It was surprising because you would think a lot of them would have negative attitudes towards us because of the collateral damage that was done and everything else, but it was very surprising to me that they saw past that to the bigger picture, that we're going to take this tyrant.

They pulled us out May of '03, so really we were in country not even three months.

In 2006, my second deployment, the enemy were hiding in the regular population. [We] tried to minimize civilian casualties; they knew how to exploit that. It was very difficult. It was very different because all the people were trying to live their lives, going to the market. It was a lot harder to identify the enemy. People were so intimidated by terrorists. they wouldn't really talk to us that much, or wouldn't really tell us the truth.

Our biggest threat was the IEDs and the snipers. Big, complex attacks were very rare, but sniper attacks, especially our first couple of months, that's where we took most of our casualties. We had IED attacks about two or three times a week; sniper attacks, I would say, at least three, four times a month -- at least effective sniper attacks. We had a couple of Marines that got killed by snipers, a couple of Marines that got wounded by snipers.

There would be days that would go by, nothing would happen; and the next patrol that goes out, a big IED goes off, [or] somebody gets hit by a sniper.

It's very hard. We didn't see any progress. I'm pretty sure by our presence we stopped a lot of attacks, but there's no way of measuring it. Every time we would capture some terrorists, that would be a big thing. But every day you're going on patrol, a lot of times you just felt like you were waiting to get shot or waiting to get blown up by an IED.

We had a Marine get killed stepping out of the gate, by a sniper. We'd take mortar fire, I would say, at least once or twice a week. Once in a while they'd do probes, small attacks. They'd put IEDs right in the middle of the city. There was roads we had to take to come out of the FOB [forward operating base]; there was no way of getting around those.

They study us pretty well. At first we were doing a lot of foot patrols in the day, [so] they brought in snipers. We realized we couldn't do foot patrols in the day, [so] we'd only do foot patrols at night. But then during the day we were doing vehicle patrols, and that's when the IEDs would go off.

When I planned the route on my patrols, I would have to take an educated guess: How can I get hit and survive? How I can avoid getting hit catastrophically? Wherever you're at, they'll find a way to shoot at you and blow you up.

I consider myself very lucky. There's a video of the attack that hit us -- the terrorists, every time they do a big attack, they record it. It was a big dump truck that the suicide bomber was driving. It was part of a complex attack with small arms, machine guns, and then a suicide vehicle came from one of the flanks, and they estimated to have about 1,000 pounds of explosives; and I was probably standing 15, 20 feet away from it, not even. All I had between me and the vehicle was a sandbag wall and a big, armored seven-ton truck.

Our whole platoon [of about 35 men] was occupying that one house. Counting myself, there was 11 wounded; luckily, there was no KIA. I was a squad leader, and in my squad of 12, I had 11 Marines and one Navy corpsman. Six of us were wounded, counting myself, so 50 percent in my squad. We lost pretty much one-third of our platoon, so we were, right there, combat ineffective.

I refused to get medevac'd. I had a really bad concussion, I had some shrapnel in my foot and my leg, [but] I felt that I could stay. I decided to stay and continue on with the operations.

This was in al-Anbar, right outside Fallujah. We deployed late July, 27th or 28th. The attack happened August 6th. It was our first week: We had just finished our relief in place [with the unit they were replacing].

I was having some difficulty with headaches after the first week with the suicide attack. I was hit by another IED, I was involved in other firefights; but I finished the seven-month deployment.

With the concussion that I had, I was experiencing a lot of headaches already from the get-go. It was really hard for me to go to sleep. My mood would go up and down, from aggressive to depressed.

The symptoms didn't really magnify until I came back from Iraq. Now that I sit back and think about it, there was some symptoms showing, but you didn't really think much about it. But my symptoms got really bad when I got home.

[With my wife,] my relationship went really downhill. I felt really detached. I knew I'd be happy to be home, and I guess I was happy. But as a leader, you can't really show fear, and I guess I managed to suppress my emotions so much -- I saw a lot of my friends get killed -- I would always, I guess, numb my emotions and just make decisions. Going through seven months of numbing your emotions and not trying to feel anything, you can't really switch on the emotions again and start feeling again. That was a big deal for my relationship.

Not being able to sleep, being irritable, angry, headaches -- all those things started taking a toll on me. I was actually getting ready to deploy for another deployment to Iraq. I became security platoon sergeant and I was in the process of training my Marines for the next deployment. I downplayed a lot of the symptoms because the last thing I wanted to do was not to be able to go on the deployment. That was my hope, that things would get a lot better. Instead, they got a lot worse. I wanted to go on this third deployment to Iraq, but the symptoms got so bad, I needed to get help.

I hit really bad depression, especially once my Marines left for Iraq and I was staying back home. I had promised that I would be next to them through everything; I lied to them. I was a sergeant, I was in charge of Marines, they had respect for me -- then I'm not deployable, I'm not medically fit for duty anymore. So I come from being the sergeant, with a lot of experience which everybody respects, to being someone [they] had no use for. You pretty much see it as you're letting everybody down. I had, like, 20-something Marines at one point; they all look up to me and respect me, and now I can't go with them.

First, they did a lot of testing: psychological evaluation, CAT scans, MRI, all those things. I had a lot of cognitive problems, balance problems. I couldn't sleep, so I was given a lot of medication, which is something I always hated to do. I wouldn't even take Motrin for pain, and now I was taking six medications a day: anti-depressants, sleep medication, medication for headaches. With the medication I felt a lot less like myself.

Luckily, our division psychologist, Lieutenant [Erin] Simmons, she created a program called "Back on Track." It was an all-day program for two weeks, from like 9 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon, part education and part social support group. A lot of us were speaking about the same troubles with our wives, girlfriends, being irritated, can't sleep. We supported each other.

That's when I met Andrea [Lucie, a yoga instructor working for the "Semper Fit" program at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune]. Lt. Simmons would have Andrea come in every day for the last hour to teach us yoga -- nothing crazy, just basic poses, beginning techniques.

What really surprised me [was that after] five or 10 minutes of doing the breathing, I would be sound asleep. That was the only time I could get some decent sleep, was in yoga time. That was a big turning thing for me, being able to sleep.

After that group, I would do a lot of therapy and working out. It helped me relax, to take the edge off with the medication and yoga, with the mixed martial arts -- it was a great way to unstress ourselves. I just felt not as irritable any more. I was better rested. I reacted much better to the therapy.

I still do it to today. I still struggle, but it helped me cope. If you saw me about eight months ago, I was sort of a zombie. I would just go from appointment to appointment and that was it, I was always tired, always exhausted.

The reactions are still there, but not as extreme as they were before. I could cope with them a lot better. [Before,] I would avoid being in crowds, I would hate being in vehicles driving around. My attention and my short-term memory are still not as good as they used to be, but I'm hoping to pretty soon go to school, get educated, so I can get a better job in the future.

I was definitely ready to get out of the Marine Corps, but it played such a big part in my life, I was very sad to go. Never in my life would I have that kind of responsibility, never in my life will I have that kind of experience. Even though some of them were negative, I believe there was a lot of positive, a lot of great things I saw. I was happy to move on to other things, but at the same time, I was sad to leave, not being a Marine any more -- which was my life.

I have been involved in some rough times and some pretty bad situations, but I would not like for people to think I regret being a Marine. if I could do it over again, I would.

The most important thing to do is to accomplish the mission, but at the same time, we got to consider, if we don't take care of ourselves, eventually we might become a burden to our fellow Marines. We also have a life after the Marine Corps. All of us are going to be very productive citizens after we get out of the Marine Corps, whether it's four years or 20 years. So I definitely would encourage everybody to get help.

This interview was conducted on Oct. 16, 2008.