Back to Iraq one last time Back to Iraq one last time (March 26, 2004)

by Jeb Bing

S gt. Shannon Pervere, who pitched the first ball to open Pleasanton's Little League baseball season last Saturday, heads back to Iraq today on quite a different assignment: clearing roadside bombs so that military convoys can travel safety. Pervere, a 1995 graduate of Foothill High School, was cheered loudly as Steve Toschi, president of the Foothill Little League, introduced him as one of 93 men and women from Pleasanton who are now on active military duty. The sergeant told the crowd that he appreciates the support he continues to have both here and in Iraq from his friends in Pleasanton, including reading hometown news in the Pleasanton Weekly, which we send to troops from this community at no charge.

At Foothill, Pervere played the saxophone in the school's marching band and with its jazz ensemble while also starring in pole vaulting and high jump on the school's track team. After graduating, he worked for a construction firm, but also signed up for a six-year hitch with the Army's 321st Military Police Company Reserve Unit in San Jose. Sent to Fort McClellan, Ala., Pervere, who wanted the experience to prepare for a career in law enforcement, thought that after basic training he'd be riding in a squad car and issuing tickets or manning a gate post at an Army base. Then he found that the 321st is a combat MP unit, whose duties include escorting convoys in battle areas and troop route reconnaissance. It wasn't long before he shipped out to Bosnia where, although armed conflict had subsided, patrolling the streets as an American MP was not risk-free.

Last May, two months after the Iraq invasion, Pervere was transferred to Kuwait for high-risk patrol training, and three weeks later to Baghdad. Promoted to sergeant, Pervere, now 26, is squad leader of Alpha Team, moving out at 6 a.m. each morning from his Baghdad Airport barracks on a 12-hour search and destroy mission of bombs along the city's major streets and thoroughfares. His job is more hazardous than most since 95 percent of the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are in his Baghdad patrol area. They're found in garbage and refuse along the streets. But with much improved high tech detection devices and through sheer memorization of everything along the routes they travel to note any changes, Pervere's group is now finding at least seven out of every 10 IEDs. He admits that's not perfect, but every IED found is one less to cause damage or possibly take a life of a fellow soldier. It's slow, tedious work, but that, too, has been made safer - and more comfortable in temperatures that are often above 120 degrees - with the new air conditioned, 10,000-pound Humvees that Pervere's group now operates. These have heavy steel plates to deflect rifle fire and shrapnel. Add to that another 67 pounds of personal interceptor body armor that Pervere and others in his squad wear and the team today is more confident that it has adequate protection.

That's important to Pervere, who has just 45 more days to serve in Iraq. Even though he's just re-enlisted for another six years with the 321st reserves, he's hoping it will be more like the duty he signed up to fulfill - one weekend a month training in San Jose and two weeks each year on active duty. During the rest of the time, Pervere wants the civilian job he's trained for in law enforcement, hopefully as a new officer with a local police department like Pleasanton's.

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