Sgt. Tommy Rieman, a member of the Real Heroes program who has his own action figure and character in the game America’s Army, stands in an undated photo from a flight line in Iraq. Rieman visited Fort Bliss as part of the Virtual Army Experience display at the Amigo Airsho Saturday and Sunday. Courtesy photo.

 

‘Real Hero’ makes appearance during Airsho

Stephen Baack

Monitor Staff

Of the many displays on the ground at the Amigo Airsho, only one featured a Soldier with his own action figure.

Sgt. Tommy Rieman was on hand at the Virtual Army Experience display, which gave visitors an opportunity to experience being a Soldier on the frontlines – something Rieman knows all about.

“It teaches Army values, communication and highlights of technology,” Rieman said. “It’s a pretty neat experience. People walk away with more respect and more gratitude of what Soldiers do for them. That’s very important for me.”

In 2003, Rieman and his fellow V Corps Soldiers were the first conventional Soldiers in Iraq leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, he said. The team went 412 kilometers behind enemy lines and pulled the first successful long-range reconnaissance surveillance mission since the Vietnam War.

When the 3rd Infantry Division and other mechanized forces moved into Iraq, though, Rieman said long-range operations went out the window and he and his team found themselves much closer to the enemy doing reconnaissance and active patrols.

Dec. 3, 2003, Rieman was in a three-vehicle convoy with eight other Soldiers when the team was ambushed by 35 enemy combatants. The Soldiers were hit with rocket-propelled grenades, improvised explosive devices and small-arms gunfire while Rieman’s gunner fired back with a .50-caliber machine gun.

“To stay alive during an ambush, you have to get fire superiority,” he said. “To do that, I used my body as a shield to protect him. I was shot in the arm, the chest and I took 11 rounds of shrapnel to my body.”

Rieman said he and his team continued engaging the enemy and moved out of the kill zone to continue their mission. Shortly thereafter, 15 more enemies ambushed the convoy. By the end of both engagements, he and his gunner were wounded, and the truck commander in the rear vehicle had lost his right leg and sustained more than 180 pieces of shrapnel throughout his body.

“We were beat up pretty badly and the odds were against us, but we kept our stuff together, remembered our values, communicated, remembered our training and took it to the enemy – and all eight of us survived,” he said.

Rieman came away with the Silver Star, the Purple Heart and a one-of-a-kind story he’d get to tell the rest of his life. He is now one of eight other Soldiers in the Army’s Real Heroes Program, through which Soldiers like Rieman who have distinguished themselves in combat get to tell their own stories through the game America’s Army, through their own action figures and in person while traveling around the country.

An action figure representing Sgt. Tommy Rieman, a recipient of the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his actions during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, stands ready with its model M-203 rifle. Courtesy photo.

 

America’s Army, though originally started as a video game, has grown to encompass real Soldier training too, Rieman said. One application is called the virtual shoot house, which Rieman described as a semi-truck tractor-trailer with America’s Army inside and displayed on the walls of a nearby shoot house. Soldiers can enter the house and fire live rounds in the life-size incarnation of the game.

The Real Heroes program started in 2006 with four Soldiers, but has expanded to eight with Rieman now managing the program. He said they are also bringing on female Silver Star recipient Spc. Monica Brown. Proceeds from action figure sales go right back into the program, Rieman said, to choose new members like Brown.

The program accepts Soldiers who’ve received the Bronze Star with Valor, the Silver Star or the Distinguished Service Cross, for example, and who are able to travel to places like Fort Bliss and are willing to tell their stories.

“This is my first time on Fort Bliss, and I didn’t expect the beautiful mountain ranges and I didn’t know we were so close to New Mexico and Mexico,” he said. “It’s a really neat place. You hear a lot about Fort Bliss and the great training area. I think you could get some valued training coming down here.”

He added it’s very important to him that someone goes out and tells a positive story.

“The media’s not doing it for us,” said Rieman. “We need to do it ourselves. In the past, we used to do that, if you look at Audie Murphy or Sergeant York. They were icons of history. We’re not trying to be that, but we’re trying to let people know that the American Soldier is an icon itself – that people need to look up to those who serve their country because they serve for a greater purpose than money or media … service to their country and their brothers and sisters.

“It’s very important to communicate that we’re ordinary people who’ve done extraordinary things, and we encourage you to do something like that too –  whether it’s joining the Army or supporting them,” Rieman added.

Because the Army is composed of so many different people, Rieman said there’s a particular need for specific, targeted examples – from his own story to that of a 42-year-old businessman who gave up everything after Sept. 11 and joined the Army.

“Those are stories people need to hear,” he said. “They’ll get the picture out of the bigger Army, but if they see the individual stories – success stories – people will follow suit and maybe be inspired to do something greater than themselves.”

He said he still deals with the challenge of repeatedly having to tell his own story after nearly five years, but that it’s very important for him to do so. In fact, Rieman said he remembers the importance of it every day.

“Sometimes I can say that story in my sleep, but it’s very important that I don’t do that, that I tell that story to everybody like I’m telling it to you for the very first time … because it is important,” said Rieman. “It wasn’t just about me that day. It was about the team that was around me – my guys I fought and served with.

“I’m not standing here because of what I did; I’m standing here because of what they did,” he added. “I was just rewarded, so I have to be their liaison and talk on behalf of them as well. I’m here because of them.”