13 July 2011

Medal of Honor Recipient SFC Leroy Petry Describes Battle

http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4853

Presenter: Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Arthur Petry July 13, 2011

Press Conference with Medal of Honor Recipient Sgt. 1st Class Petry at the Pentagon

MAJ. BRIAN DESANTIS: Good afternoon. Thank you all for coming. My name is Major Brian DeSantis. I'm the public affairs officer for the 75th Ranger Regiment.

And yesterday, as you all know, Sergeant First Class Petry was awarded the Medal of Honor by the president of the United States in a ceremony at the White House. Sergeant First Class Petry is the second living Medal of Honor recipient since the Vietnam War and the first member of the 75th Ranger Regiment to receive this honor.

Sergeant First Class Petry is not going to make an opening statement. We're just going to get straight into answering your questions. I'd just ask, if you have a question, raise your hand. I'll be standing over here and I'll call on you. Could you -- if you could, please identify yourself with your name and organization to Sergeant Petry before you ask your question. If you have a follow-up, raise your hand and I'll call on you for a follow-up. We'll do this for about 45 -- or excuse me, for about 30 minutes or until there are no more questions.

So with that, Medal of Honor Recipient Sergeant First Class Leroy Petry.

Justin -- the first question.

Q: Sergeant Petry, congratulations on your award, first of all. I'm Justin Fishel from Fox.

If you don't mind, could you tell us in your own words what happened that day? We've heard the story described, but I'd like to hear it from you, if it's okay.

SGT. PETRY: Do you want the fast version or the whole version?

Q: (inaudible).

SGT. PETRY: The whole version's going to take some time. But that's okay, I'll go through it.

We were given a high-value target that we were after, not normally -- a night -- normally we operate night raids. This one happened to be at daylight. We got on helicopters.

It's kind of funny, the one thing I noticed that day was – you kind of lose track of time because you're so busy overseas.

And I remember running into our tent where we keep our food, and I was going to grab a few snacks. In case we got stuck over a long period of time, the guys would have some extra food, because you never know how long a mission's going to take.

But I walk into this tent, and it's decorated like the 4th of July, and I'm looking around. I'm going -- I don't even know what date it is right now, and I've -- there's a sheet cake, and I look down at it, and it says, Happy Memorial Day. And that -- that's how I got the grasp of what day it was within the calendar. I mean, I knew the date, May 26th, but not the significance. I lost track of time. Just -- we were so busy that rotation.

And we get on the helicopter. As we're going out, I'm -- I was a little bit nervous because daylight raids are rare for us, and it kind of evens the odds a little bit more -- I wouldn't say even; we're still a lot better. But it gives them higher percentage ratings.

Anyways, we get in. Soon as we land, we're immediately taking immense amount of contact.

Sparsely vegetated -- just to give you an idea of the terrain, it was a lot of mud walls, some farm fields, vegetation everywhere. And then it's a really urban environment -- I mean a rural environment -- I'm sorry -- and just about four or five different little compounds within a small area.

And as we're moving up, we take contact, and my platoon leader, who I was moving with -- I was supposed to be the senior element for the headquarters once we get into the compound, one of the main target buildings of -- and the -- I see another young ranger leading his squad into a compound.

I broke off from my platoon leader. I said, “Hey, that guy's -- I'm going to go help them. And they'll probably need some assistance, because it was a larger compound.”

I moved in, followed in trail with his squad. At that point, we -- they went in to clear a building in the back. I can -- I can't remember what -- north or northwest, I think it was.

Anyways, it was in the back corner, diagonal from us, about 10 o'clock from where we entered. And then -- excuse me one second; let me get a drink of water. Once they entered in, they were clearing the building, I stayed on the outside of the doorway, and I said, “Hey, we still need to clear this interior courtyard. Give me some guys.”

Once they were able to give me a guy -- it was PFC Robinson at the time -- Bob Mann said, “He got one; let's go.” We started moving -- I immediately -- once we broke the corner, I saw two guys out of the peripheral vision of my eyes, and they were spraying AK-47sat the hip, an immense amount of fire.

Next thing I know, I feel this slap in the side of my thigh – my left eye that felt like a hammer striking it, and it was a quick strike of the hammer. And the thought that went through my mind -- it was kind of -- the only thing I could relate it to is the "Forrest Gump" movie -- something bit me and keep running, because that's what we're trained to do. You're taking contact, get behind cover.

So I ran behind cover, PFC Robinson behind me, who had been shot as well in his -- about – at rib cage area on his left side. And we take cover behind a little -- small building, probably about 8 feet tall, 6 or 6 -- 6 to 8 feet, 7 feet tall, and about 20 -- 25 -- 20 to 25 feet wide.

And we take cover behind that. I'm telling him right away -- he's saying he's hit. I'm calling it up on the radio right away, “Hey, we’ve got rangers -- two rangers down. We're taking heavy contact.” Gave our position, and I'm telling-- at the same time I'm trying to get PFC -- see how PFC Robinson's doing, saying, “Hey, make sure you (inaudible) security, starting doing self aid on yourself.” And I'm watching my corner, making sure that the enemy doesn't come around and close in on us.

And I grab a thermobaric grenade at the time and threw it over the building toward the enemy. It went off.

Right about the same time it went off, one of our third rangers came over to me, Sergeant Higgins, and he was like, hey, you guys --you guys, let me help you. I said, “Help Robinson. Watch security on that corner, I got this side.”

And I was still calling up the command -- to the command frequency, my platoon leader and my platoon sergeant.

After that, the -- we were sitting there and still taking a heavy amount of gunfire around both sides. It was just loud, and the younger guys were kind of a little anxious, and we hear a blast. And it was -- sounded like it was right on top of us. Two guys next to me, they were like, what the heck was that?

And I said, “They're throwing grenades. Keep your heads down.” And next thing I know is I'm telling them to keep security and self-aid. I call it up, was taking small arms and grenade fire. I turned and checked my corner. As soon as I turned back to look at my guys -- we weren't more than a few feet apart -- there's a pineapple grenade sitting on the floor about two feet, two and a half feet away from me in the middle of all of this.

I immediately knew it wasn't one of ours, just for the fact that we haven't used pineapple grenades in quite some time. And immediate reaction was, get it -- get it out of here, get it away from the guys and myself. And I reached over, leaned over to the right, grabbed it with my hand, and I threw it as hard as I could, what I thought was, at the time. And as soon as I opened my hand to let it go, it just exploded instantly. And I came back, and the -- the hand was completely severed off.

I sat up and (inaudible) the hand was gone, but I didn't feel any pain. It was weird. I think it was lot of the adrenaline and the -- not really shock, but adrenaline and the nerves tucking back from the traumatic injury. But I looked at it, and I remembered it so vividly, the blood coming out, oozing. I was waiting for -- where's the Hollywood spray; why isn't it gushing out?

And I saw the little bit of meat hanging around the side, the radius and the ulna poking up about a quarter of an inch. The smell was a mixture of blood, gunpowder, burn, and there's dirt and -- it looked pretty grotesque, so to speak. But I couldn't help, in amazement, the only thought that was going through my mind was, why isn't it spraying? That's what I was looking for, and I was like, oh -- that was a split second that I thought -- that ran through my mind, and then immediately it fell back on training and knowing what to do.

I reached down, grabbed a tourniquet, was able to apply the tourniquet and tighten it to my limb on my own. And I immediately called up to higher, “Hey, we're still taking heavy contact. We're getting small arms fire. I just lost my hand. Over.” And I remember calling up to my platoon sergeant, Sergeant Staidle, and as soon as I let go of my mic and -- I thought through my head, that probably wasn't the best thing to put over the mic; he probably has no idea what I'm talking about, I just lost my hand.

Well, the next thing I notice was one of our first sergeants on the ground, Sergeant Walters, comes running up to me from the front side, and the enemy's still to our backs. He comes up to me and grabs me by my kit, and he has to pick me up, and he says, come on, we're going to get you out of here. And I kind of pushed his hand, and I said, “You're not taking me anywhere until you get those guys back there.”

And he says, all right, well, we'll come back for you, because that's what we're -- we're trained to fight the fight and continue the fight, and casualties once the fight is done, or else you just cause more casualties.

And so he ran off. At that time, Sergeant Staidle had come over. I didn't really catch a lot of the side actions that were going on, but I know that they took contact from the other side of the courtyard as well, and that Sergeant Roberts and Sergeant Higgins had engaged an enemy, and that enemy had shot one of our -- one of our rangers.

And I didn't find out about that until -- well, I knew we needed to get out of there.

Going back to when we're sitting there, first sergeant took off. I was sitting there. We knew we needed to get out of this situation. I ended up grabbing onto Sergeant Higgins, Sergeant Staidle, and they helped us get out of there.

We ran over to this casualty collection point, which we called CCP. And at that point, we got into an enclosed little building area. And the mind said keep going, but the body said wait, we're losing a lot of juice; you've got to stop and take a break.

And the doc came up to me. He's like, “Hey, Sergeant Petry, Sergeant Petry, we need to start cutting off your clothes and getting you checked out. I've got to wrap your hand.”

And I said, “Don't worry about me. I'm fine. I'm good. I don't have pain. Don't worry.” And I saw them working on a couple other casualties. And I said, “Go help them, go help them”

And he said, “No, no, there's other docs working on them. Let me help you.”

And at that point I was like, okay. Enough people telling me I can't do it anymore, I should probably listen to them. And that's when I found out, when they cut off my uniform, that I was shot through both legs. At first I thought I had just been shot in the leg and maybe the bullet was lodged in my left leg. But they started putting tourniquets on both my thighs thinking I might have nicked an artery or something.

So to have that bullet go through both my legs and not hit any arteries or bones and just to take tissue and muscle, it was -- it was pretty amazing. It was a miracle. And then to have a grenade go off within arm's distance just about and only thing walking away was shrapnel here and there and a prosthetic hand, I was overzealous that I got two miracles in one day.

And the third miracle was that the two guys next to me are alive and well. And they continued Rangering on for a little bit. They both just decided to get out of the military and to go on to college and hope to pursue families. And their family did not suffer the loss of them that day. So it was -- it was -- it was a great moment knowing that they will -- their family did not miss out on them, and they'll go on and have children.

But when I -- when I got to there, we got -- there was -- it took about what seemed to me about five minutes, them getting us all ready for what we call an (inaudible) where they -- Medevac process; they come in and pick up the wounded. Well, as they get -- they're pulling us up the hill, I had a bunch of guys carrying me in a stretcher and I felt kind of -- hey -- guys running up to me saying, hey, you're going to be all right. You're all right.

I said, hey, we're still -- we're still in the fight. Get away from me. I'll see you later. I was like, pull security, that's the important thing. We don't need to get shot moving up here. And I know there was a lot of concern . A lot of guys were like – they could -- because they could see the hand was completely amputated. And I said, keep going after it, man. Do you right. Do what you guys are doing.

And we get to the helicopter. Sergeant Higgins leans down next to me and says, you saved us, you saved us, you saved us. And I'm just sitting there, man, I want to get back out of this helicopter and go be with the boys. We've got a -- we've got a good -- we've got a good fight going on and I'd like to be there with them.

But we got to an airfield where we switched over to an airplane. And while we're waiting at that airfield for the airplane, that's when I found out that Specialist (inaudible) was the one that was hit. And I thought -- I -- it just -- heart dropped at that moment when I knew that we had a guy that was severely hit, a fatal shot to one of our rangers. And I didn't know the name at the time, but I knew it was one of them. And it just -- it tears a piece of you away that --knowing that another ranger paid the ultimate sacrifice. And that could have been any one of us.

[Balance omitted.]