Carson grad recalls pushing into Baghdad with 101st Airborne

Carson High School graduate Joseph Madera, 20, was so keyed up during his unit's push toward Baghdad last year that he doesn't remember making the one call home he was allowed to make.

"He was just in survival mode," said his mother, Denise. His voice came and went, there was a one- or two-second delay, and it was over in less than two minutes. She doesn't remember the date of the call.

"A lot of last year is a haze," she said.

A few weeks later her son and the rest of the 101st Airborne were securing Saddam International Airport when he discovered an underground storage room. Going down the stairs, he saw a room full of explosives and rocket-propelled grenades.

He was just about to enter when he noticed a string tied low across the door. Set to trigger a tank-killing mine, it was a trap left by the Republican Guard.

"I went back up the stairs and told my sergeant about it," Madera said from his parent's living room Monday. "He took care of it."

Pfc. Madera graduated from Carson High in 2002 and left for basic training at Fort Benning, Ga. three months later. He signed up for the airborne and was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 187th infantry. They left Fort Campbell, Ky., for Kuwait in August and were gone 11 months.

His parents, Denise and Jose Madera, have a picture in their home off North Edmonds Drive of their son and another soldier. They are posing with Iraqi AK-47 rifles at Saddam International Airport - later renamed Baghdad International. Securing the airport was the easy part, the soldier said.

"The Republican Guard pretty much just threw down their weapons and left."

From there it got harder. During the push into Baghdad his unit took a lot of mortar and machine gun fire.

"Those first couple battles really stand out in my mind," he said. "I was just thinking, 'I hope I don't get shot,' and I tried to keep everyone else alive with me."

Baghdad smelled terrible, he said.

"There were pretty much cesspools of flies everywhere."

At first the city's residents were scared of the American troops.

"The ladies would all run inside as we passed by," he said.

Later, things calmed down.

"Me and my battle buddy could just walk to the market and nothing would happen. We'd go out in the streets and people would give us free soda. They loved the 101st when we first got there. The only problems we had were when we had people who'd decide to walk out in the streets with AK-47s. We'd arrest them, put a sandbag over their head, take them back to the base and interrogate them - try to figure out why they had those AK-47s."

Madera slept on the hood of his Humvee to avoid being stung by scorpions. He'd wrap himself in a blanket to block out the mosquitoes. They would crowd around his breathing hole and fly into his mouth.

"You get used to it after a couple hours," he said.

He didn't shower for more than 30 days at the start of the conflict. When they took control of mansions around Baghdad, they had running water and marble showers with brass fittings.

"That first shower was the best shower I ever took in my life," he said.

Inside one of Saddam's palaces he saw a chandelier twice as big as the one on the ship from "Titanic."

"And Saddam had a huge oil portrait of himself. It must have been two stories high."

His unit did not see a single casualty until after President Bush declared major combat over. He said that's because they didn't allow any media along who could give away their location.

"Of course that means we didn't get any credit, either."

"I'd rather have you home alive than get credit," said his mom.

Many of Madera's high school buddies joined the military, too. His cousin Mario Madera, 18, recently completed Marine Corps boot camp at Camp Pendleton. He's home in Carson City on a 10-day leave,

"We're going to go get our portrait taken in our uniforms," Madera said.

After his 30 days are up he'll head back to his fort in Kentucky and resume training.

"That'll get us prepared for the next war that comes along or the next deployment," he said.

Contact Karl Horeis at khoreis@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1219.