Paul Rieckhoff
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Paul Rieckhoff founded and is Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). A non-partisan non-profit founded in 2004 with tens of thousands of members in all 50 US states, IAVA is America’s first and largest Iraq and Afghanistan veterans' group.
Honored by Esquire as one of "America’s Best and Brightest" in 2004, Rieckhoff has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs. Recent appearances include: ABC’s documentary To Iraq and Back: Bob Woodruff Reports, The Charlie Rose Show, 60 Minutes, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Paula Zahn Now, This Week With George Stephanopoulos, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper 360, Countdown with Keith Olberman, Hardball with Chris Matthews, NBC Nightly News, ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, Hannity and Colmes, Big Story with John Gibson, BBC World, NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Fresh Air, The Henry Rollins Show, The Colbert Report and Real Time with Bill Maher.
Rieckhoff has had opinion pieces printed in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, New York Daily News, U.S. News and World Report, Newsweek, Giant (magazine), Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Army Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and Newsday. He is also a regular blogger for The Huffington Post and Military.com.
Rieckhoff’s first book, a critically acclaimed account of his experiences in Iraq and activism afterwards, titled Chasing Ghosts, was published by Penguin in May 2006.
While the IAVA is not tied to any political party or candidate, Rieckhoff has been a harsh critic of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. A 1998 graduate of Amherst College, he now lives in New York City.
[edit] Military background
Rieckhoff was a First Lieutenant and infantry rifle platoon leader in the Iraq war from 2003-2004.
Rieckhoff enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves on September 15, 1998 and completed Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training at Fort McClellan, Alabama. He then served in the U.S. Army Reserves, as a Specialist with the 812th Military Police Company. While working on Wall Street at J.P. Morgan in 1999, Rieckhoff transferred to the New York Army National Guard, graduating from Officer Candidate School in June 2001. He was named a Distinguished Military Graduate. Rieckhoff selected infantry as his branch and joined A Company, 1/105th INF (Light).
Rieckhoff left Wall Street on September 8, 2001, with plans to travel and complete additional military schooling. Those plans would change dramatically. On the morning of September 11, Rieckhoff was at his apartment on 24th Street in Manhattan when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. He joined scores of volunteers serving in the rescue effort at Ground Zero. His unit was formally activated for rescue and security operations later that evening.
In February 2002, Rieckhoff began Infantry Officers Basic Course at Fort Benning, Georgia. He graduated in June 2002 and immediately volunteered for active duty and a place in the pending war in Iraq.
In January 2003, Rieckhoff got the call to go to Iraq. Two days later, he was on a plane to join the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia. Rieckhoff was then assigned as a Platoon Leader for 3rd Platoon, B Company, 3/124th INF (Air Assault) FLNG.
The unit was attached to 1st Brigade, 3ID and spent almost a year conducting combat operations in Iraq, centered in the Adamiyah section of Baghdad on the Eastern bank of the Tigris River. Third Platoon conducted over 1,000 dismounted and mounted combat patrols. 3/124th INF was the first reserve component unit in the Army to be awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge since the Korean War. All 38 men in Rieckhoff's platoon returned home alive. Rieckhoff was released from active duty on March 2004 and now serves as an infantry officer in the New York Army National Guard.
He makes an appearance in When I Came Home, a 2006 documentary on homeless veterans.
