Defending the Capitol: SSG Aquilino Gonell

Ken Harbaugh:

I’m Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors In Their Own Words. In partnership with the Honor Project, we’ve brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs these stories more than ever.

Warriors in Their Own Words is our attempt to present an unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation. Thank you for listening, and by doing so, honoring those who have served.

Today, we’ll hear from SSG. Aquilino Gonell. Gonell is an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who served in the Army in Iraq. He also defended the capitol on January 6th as a Capitol Police Officer.

Sgt. Aquilino Gonell:

I'm a former soldier and a veteran, Sergeant Aquilino Gonell. By the time I left the Army, I left as a staff sergeant. That was my highest rank.

Well initially, I joined, one, to get away from my dad, and two, to pay my education. But 9/11 changed all that. I find myself being throttled with the fervor of that time, which was, be in the military and go overseas and fight. Avenge what happened on 9/11.

I was transferred like three times before ending up in the unit that I got deployed overseas with. First, they needed me for a public affairs unit, then they transferred me to a maintenance unit, then a supply unit. I ended up with another supply unit, a quartermaster, the 424 Quartermaster out of New York. And then Shoreham, New York, immediately after that. Then I think the summer 2003, as a person that works in personnel, I already knew that we were getting deployed. It was just a matter of time.

I began preparing for those packages for the service members. To get all their legal documents and affairs in place, and making phone calls for the immediate people who needed to be in the unit to help with the deployment. Then the training that we needed to do, by the time we got deployed, it was in the middle of the winter. Snow storms, very cold weather, training outside in the field to go to a desert type of environment. It didn't make any sense to us, and to myself. We did get the call.

We got to Kuwait, I think it was February, early February. We spent about 10 days there, prepping to go overseas, to go into Iraq. Half of my platoon went by convoy, and the other half went by air. I don't know if it was luck, or how I ended up in the plane. The mere fact that initially the plane, the C-130, did three maneuvers to evade incoming fire. It kind of popped my ears, and leaving me with pain for a couple of weeks. I don't know if you've ever been exposed to that, but it was very painful.

Once I got there, we immediately tried to find out how, placing within the base. It was very primitive. We were still burning the human waste with jet fuel and stirring it up and things like that. We didn't have a latrine, just a hole. Eventually, things began to get built up with the engineers and things like that. In a way, I joked around with some of the soldiers at that time. "Look, this is... I mean you might be homesick, but to me it's normal, because I grew up in the Dominican Republic with certain things similar to those things." The only difference was the wording in the language was different. One is Spanish and one Arabic. So I'm like, "You might be homesick, but it doesn't bother me. It doesn't faze me." So I was a little more comfortable than they were.

We had a lot of sand fleas and camel spiders, that people were afraid of, and duly so. I mean those things are huge. From what I'm told, is that they eat the stomach of the camels. That's where they got the name from. But it was a lot of fear, a lot of anguish. A lot of uneasiness, because we didn't know what to expect. Immediately, we began to set up the base and run the supply line, because what we were in charge of. I know initially we didn't volunteer. We would not be sent to Iraq to go inside Iraq, but to stay in Kuwait, as I ment ioned in the book. But later on, I find out that both my captain and my first sergeant at that time, they advocated for us to go deeper inside the country, into Iraq. Because the unit that was already there needed replacement, and I guess we would draw the short stick of the straw.

I know I remember when I began the process through the military to become a citizen myself, they did the paperwork. Even that, that was up fucked up. Because when I actually got to the Social Security office to prove that I was, to apply for it, that was the process back then. They told me, "Oh, your name is misspelled, both your first name and your last name." So I've got to fix two things. I'm like, "How can that be? I just submitted it myself, and I double-checked." They fucked it up inside the Social Security or the Army.

By the time I got to Iraq, there were several soldiers that I knew that were immigrants themselves. They were either from Jamaica, Africa, the Middle East, Dominican, Caribbean, some of them from Central America as well. These are people who signed up to fight for this country. I don't even know whether they knew that was a possibility, of them gaining their citizenship. I know when I signed up initially to join the military, the recruiter supervisor mentioned to me, "Well, are you a citizen?" I'm like, "No, I'm not, but I mean I don't know what that means for you." He goes to another room, come back, and he'll be like, the statement at the bottom of my contract says, if I wanted to continue my military service past eight years, I needed to become a US citizen. To me that was like, I'm already risking my life for this country. That should be outright given to me. But I didn't want to get into an argument with him, or anybody. So I did follow the process.

I know when I was in Iraq I helped, because I already had gone through the process. Somebody mentioned they were trying to re-enlist, and that came up. I'm like, "Okay, how can I help these soldiers?" So I went to the battalion commander, I went to the captain, and the division commander as well, just to speed up the process. We ended up doing, at least in my platoon, in my company, we did at least 16 to 20 naturalizations. We ended up sending some of these soldiers to Baghdad for them to be sworn in at the US Embassy at that time. Not only did people, officers, soldiers from my company, but throughout the base that were spread out, that that could be done at the US Embassy. That was good. I felt good about doing that.

It helped, like all hands helping other soldiers become a citizen, because I couldn't even exercise my voting rights if I was not a sworn citizen. If I was not a US citizen. I got to do that while in Iraq, using an absentee ballot. Whether they got back in time for the election, I don't know, but at least I exercised my right at that time. Once I came back from Iraq, I remember getting into an argument with somebody online at that time, an American online chat. People were saying, "Well, they shouldn't have..." Because at that time, there was a topic about giving the citizenship after they die, posthumously. I'm like, "What good is that for the soldier? What good is that going to be for the family of that person?" Because it's not transferable to their family. It's just him or her getting the naturalization after he dies. So their family are ass out. I felt very strongly that, if anything, it should have been given the moment that they go overseas to fight for this country, without even any paperwork being requested. That was something that I was advocating at that time, and even now I still do.

Even though my MOS said admin, I was doing a lot more than admin things. I was assigned to be the clerk unit person. I was assigned to do guard duty at the guard towers. I was assigned to guarding the prisoners, enemy combatants coming injured to the hospital. I was assigned to retrieve and gather information from injured people from different companies including my own, to report back to the battalion commander. Those are things that took time. At that time, they didn't even have a lot of phone lines going on, or the buses that they had at the LSA Anaconda, which it took probably like three or four months into it. Everything else was by foot, walking on gravel or sand, just to gather all that information. It was hard. It was hard, because a lot of people think just because my MOS says admin, that's the only thing I was doing. That I was nice inside a building with AC or anything like that. They didn't even have AC.

We were standing in the PX line just to buy Gatorade and M&M's, and probably some DVDs at that time, just to kill time. Some of the soldiers, they had portable DVD players that we took from here to war, just in case we might have a chance to have time. My platoon sergeant and myself, we were in the PX line. Two or three soldiers came up in front of us, and asked the sergeant, "Can you guys let us go through, because we are about to leave in about an hour, back redeploying for good to the US? We completed our tour, and all we want to do is just buy some souvenirs to bring to our family." And we obliged. We let them go through. Immediately after that, when they were coming out, they got hit. And we feel guilty, myself and my other platoon sergeant. We still do, because that could have been us. They literally took our place, and we got attacked by mortar. There are pictures of that attack at that time. I still have some of those pictures, with the wall being plastered with shrapnel. Some of those soldiers were decapitated, injured really badly, and they lost their lives.

To this day, I do speak, I'm in touch with my platoon sergeant, that person. Asking him last year about it, to remind me about some of the details, to talk about that incident. That was hard for him, and for me as well. He broke down. He still has nightmares.

This is 20 years later, we're still going through these things. He has been treated. I've been treated for it. It's just there. Those are the things that you will never forget. It wasn't a chance by luck. It was just, you know what? It wasn't our time. But the scars and the injuries are still there, so it's hard to forget. It's hard to move on. Yes, I survived those things. I'm lucky, but it doesn't mean that I'm not traumatized by it.

The only thing that they used to do was set up the mortars to be fired once... They set it up, and then put a brick of ice. Once the ice melts, then that will have fired, the mortar. By the time the mortar fires, that person was long gone from the spot. So even if you redirect fire to the same location where that mortar came from, that person would have been gone a long time ago. Because it would've had taken probably like half an hour for the ice to melt, and by that time they were gone. That was one tactic that they used.

I didn't even know that was what they used to call them, until last year when I spoke to a very good friend of mine that I still am in touch with. He used to be in my platoon. I asked him, "Do you remember that time?" He, "Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember everybody knew him by Mortar Mike." I'm like, "Wow, really? Thanks for letting me know 20 years later." But as funny as it sounds, it wasn't funny. Because people were losing their lives, and had the potential to lose their lives.

We used to send the QIF, quick reaction team or force, to those locations. That's what we usually used to find, because again, you cannot just go to those areas blind, or thinking that it's all clear. So you have to clear the area, and then get to the spot. Then Mortar Mike used to usually drive around and fire rockets from within the civilian population, and it was hard to catch. I don't even know whether we did or not, to be honest. All I knew was that they kept firing at us different angles, different areas, and that was hard.

We used to get a lot of civilians, they used to call them hajis, which is a derogatory term in my mind, and I think to a lot of people. I used to call them nationals or local nationals. Because the way they were portrayed, it was like, "Okay, how will you feel if this was done to us here in the US? How would you feel if people that you're supposed to be helping, and paying them for their service, you keep them in the sun all day without no water or food?" That's kind of mistreatment. I guess because I grew up with that sentiment to look out after all the people, maybe that was part of it. But I also knew that doing those things would make them loath us more, and be more resentful toward our presence there. And they were. I know that one time that I went to the Abu Ghraib prison. I got there. Got them supplies, fuel, food, ammo, letters, care packages from the loved ones, at least to my detachment that we have there. Once we were leaving, I see outside that this soldier from ours threw the bottle full of liquid to the kid. I knew we didn't have no Gatorade, because I asked. I looked for Gatorade, and I didn't find none. Nobody had any Gatorade. When I confronted him about, "What did you throw away? Was it a bottle full of water or Gatorade?" He was like, "Oh, Gatorade." I'm like, "No, we don't. We don't have Gatorade. What did you put in it?" "Well, I had to piss. I pissed earlier, and I filled up the bottle. I threw it at him, at the kid that was asking for Gatorade." Looking back in the mirror, I see the kid puking the piss. "How would you feel if somebody did that to you, to your kid? You've been enraged as well, so you want to do something to avenge that, in a way. This is their country. We should be cognizant of that, and be respectful in a certain way. You don't need to antagonize the population, because that's going to get not only yourself killed, but somebody else, if not." I don't know. I just think that sometimes we do certain things because we think we might be able to get away with those things, those impulses. Not knowing or taking into account the consequences of those actions.

I did discipline that soldier. I did talk to him, had a counseling session with those two soldiers. I think from that point on, I didn't hear anything more from that soldier, and I hope that he learned his lesson. I mean, I don't know exactly what part of the country he was, but I know he was from the Midwest. As you know, they're not too friendly to people like myself or foreigners. I just want people to know that, if you demonize the community or the population where you're supposed to be working, at some point they're going to fight back, and it's not going to be pretty.

Unfortunately, we didn't know the extent of the plan to attack the Capitol on multiple fronts. We thought that the fighting was going to be concentrated just on the west front, but I guess we were wrong, given the thousands and thousands of people who decided to take part in the insurrection and in the fight.

It was very, a lot of anxiety, a lot of things was going through my mind. We didn't know exactly what was happening outside. Just yesterday I was listening to some of the radio communication that was happening around that day. It put me back exactly at that moment, where I felt, and you could feel in the communication, the crescendo urgency of the moment. When the officer screamed, "Send everything you've got. Send all the officers available," along those lines. "We're getting attacked."

Those are things that remind me of that moment. That's exactly what I urged my fellow police officers and my team to hurry up and redeploy ourselves to a position to help my colleagues, that they were being attacked on the west front. And the reason why I say it was worse than Iraq, even though in Iraq I survived explosions and shooting as well. It's not because I'm alive in Iraq and now here. The reason I'm saying it's worse or was worse, is because there were things that were happening simultaneously, back to back to back to back. What I perceived at that time on January 6th, a life-threatening situation, to get into another one a couple of minutes later. For example, we lost the police line, and everybody else is encroaching on our space. We lose the police line. We are being overwhelmed, overrun. We are tired, we are exhausted. We feel defeated. Not only are we feeling like we are losing our fight. Even though we have guns, we don't want to antagonize the crowd, because there are thousands of them, and none of them have gone through security. Then people are assaulting you with anything they get their hands on, pepper spray, bear spray. Breaking down some metal barriers, and using those rods to hit you, or throw it and lance at you, or use it as a spear. Using the American flag, still attached to a flagpole. Using those as bayonets, and injuring you with those things. Not only were we getting trampled, but we were also getting crushed in the tunnel. Then I survived getting dragged, like they did to Michael Fanone. Then I'm getting crushed right next to Hodges, in between the mob and the police officer behind me. I'm literally in the middle of it. There are pictures of me just raising my hand, trying to help somebody. But at the same time, I guess I'm calling for help for myself as well. Those are only the first few, two hours, moments of those four and a half plus that I spent there on the west front. It's hard not to feel that way. When I said it was a struggle to move two feet ahead of us, it was because it was. You had literally had to spend almost 20-25 minutes just to move up a couple of inches forward. You're fighting with these people, and they are relentless. They're not listening to any commands that you've given them. The chemicals that we were deploying to repel them, that also wasn't deterring them from coming in. To the point of even pushing and joining a hee-haw mob inside the tunnel. Regardless of who was in front of them, they just want to go through.

Now that I know his name, and he has been convicted, Kyle Fitzsimons. He's the guy who was pulling me into the crowd, and it didn't matter to him that there were officers telling him to stop doing whatever he was doing. He joined the fray, not once but multiple times. He waited until I was busy trying to help another officer who fell in front of me and I came to his rescue. I pulled that officer by the back of his collar. When I did that, then Fitzsimons was able to grab my shield and my shoulder strap. And kept holding onto it to the point that other rioters fell on top of him, and he still wouldn't let go. He injured my shoulder.

At that time I was like, "Well, let me try to give this guy a hit or two at least in his hand or arm. If that doesn't work, then I'm going to transition to lethal force." Immediately when I thought about that, then another officer from Metropolitan Police came from my right, and began to beat him up to the point that he released me. I was lucky. I was lucky, because I could have been dragged just like they did to Michael Fanone. I didn't know him at that time, but he literally took my spot before all that stuff happened. I'd already seen what happened to him. He got dragged unconscious back into the crowd, I mean into the police line.

We, in my opinion, collectively, but yet individually, chose not to use lethal force. Nobody told us not to. We just knew that, if we did that, if we did not show restraint, that we didn't know what would be the outcome. In a way, I think they were waiting for us to use lethal force, and we were waiting for them to use lethal force. And that kind of kept everybody in check, in terms of using firearms. But it wasn't easy. I know we were justifiable, if we were to do that. We just didn't know who was armed. We knew that they had arms, but we didn't know who. As a police officer, you are accountable for each round that goes out of your barrel. If you miss, or you hit Grandma or whatever, even though you are justifiable. Because there's no way that if there's a fire in the building, and you say to yourself, "Well I feel the heat, but I don't think it's a fire." Then you get to the fire, you get burned, that's on you for being dumb enough to get to the fire, because you could see there's a fire. A lot of people saw the fighting inside the tunnel, and yet they decided to join the fight, and then say, "You know what? Oh, I didn't know that there was a fight going on." You didn't see the punches? You didn't see the pepper spray? You didn't see the brawl? You didn't see the crowd roaring? You didn't see all the pepper spray, or the weapons, or the shields being taken away from police officers?

When they go in front of the court and say, "I didn't know. I got caught up in the moment," those are dumb excuses that they only are telling themselves, trying to make the judge believe them. But again, if there's a fight, and you think there's a fight, and you hear that there's a fight, most likely it's a fight. And a lot of people decided to join the fray, because it was their intent. Their intent was to breach the Capitol, and it didn't matter whether we were police officers or not.

When I joined the military, I knew the danger of risking my life to protect many people in this country. When I raised my hand again to become a police officer, I did that again willingly as a police officer. There are certain dangers that are inherent within the profession. I was willing to take it, and I did. That's what I thought I was doing on January 6th, when I risked my life. I could have just as easily walked away from that door, that entrance. I didn't. I stayed on my post. I stayed for four hours and a half battling, or more, the mob both outside in the plaza on the west front, and inside the tunnel. Then we stayed over, checking and securing the building throughout the day. I got to the Capitol at 6:10 that day on January 6th. I didn't go home until January 7th at 4:00 AM. To be back at the Capitol at 8:00, and do another 16-18 hours, and did that for three days. When I risked my life, I wasn't thinking about who am I protecting, whether they're Democrat, Republican, Independent, gay, straight, religious or non-religious. I was doing it because it was my sworn oath. It was my duty. I kept my oath. I did my job. I did what I was supposed to. I defended the Capitol. I defended our democracy. I defended my colleagues. I defended my wife's future, my kids' future, and my own. Even if that meant risking my life, I was willing to do that. Now you have people that says, "Nothing happened at Capitol." Or, "Let me release this video, this clip," which selectively picks three seconds or three minutes of quietness out of how many hours of fighting? Are you talking about the beginning, or the end when people are being rushed out, and people look like they haven't done anything? But what about the fighting?

On January 7th, when I was about to head back to the Capitol. My wife, she was upset at me, because instead of going to the hospital, I went to work. I didn't tell her the reason why. But last year, the conversation came up again. I tell her, when she asked about it. I'm like, "Do you remember that day, because you wanted me to go to the hospital instead of going to work? I said, 'No, help me get back to work.' At that time, I was not thinking about myself. I was not thinking about my safety. But my family, their future and the country's future."

Just yesterday, sorry, Saturday, my wife was able to become a US citizen as well. So there goes the irony, or how things works. Back then on January 7th, I thought my family would not have a chance, if the outcome would be different. If that meant putting myself on the line, risking my life again by returning, even with my injuries on January 7th, I thought that was protecting them, and helping secure not only their future but everybody else as well.

Ken Harbaugh:

That was SSG Aquilino Gonell. To learn more about Gonell, check out his book, American Shield, or listen to his interview on our other podcast, Burn the Boats. The link is in the show description.

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Warriors In Their Own Words is a production of Evergreen Podcasts, in partnership with The Honor Project.

Our producer is Declan Rohrs. Brigid Coyne is our production director, and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our Audio Engineer.

Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers, Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia, and David Moss.