Deep Reads: The Hero
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2024
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Army officer Rich Fierro deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, he thought he was fighting to keep war and terror away from his family on the home front. Afterward, like many combat veterans, he struggled to readjust to civilian life. Gradually, with the help of his wife and daughter, and his therapist, he managed to claw his way to a healthier place. The Fierro family started a business in Colorado Springs — a brewery that honored their Mexican heritage and strove to be welcoming to all kinds of people, including members of the LGBTQ community. It seemed as if Rich and his family had come through America’s war on terror intact and won their peace at home. Until, one night, a new kind of enemy walked into their lives and started shooting.
The story is part of our Deep Reads series, which showcases narrative journalism at The Washington Post. It was written by Dan Zak and read by a narrator from our partners at Noa, newsoveraudio.com, an app offering curated audio articles.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Dan Zach, a reporter for the Washington Post. I wrote a story as part of our Deep Breed series, which showcases narrative journalism here at the post. |
| 0:09.0 | The story is about Rich Fierro, an Army veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who deployed four times over ten years, saw combat, lost soldiers, and came back pretty broken, but got his life together, only to be at the center of a mass shooting in |
| 0:25.0 | Colorado Springs in 2022 with his family. |
| 0:29.0 | Rich has experienced two major kinds of modern violence, the military war on terror abroad and the |
| 0:34.9 | lopsided war that's erupting all around us at home in the form of mass shootings. |
| 0:39.4 | The way he and his family have endured both, well, their story illuminated for me the pain of living in 21st century America and the love required to survive it. |
| 0:52.0 | A note to listeners, this story includes profanity. to |
| 0:53.4 | the story includes profanity and descriptions of violence. |
| 0:57.0 | It'll be read here by a narrator from our partners at NOAA, |
| 1:00.5 | news over audio.com, an app offering curated audio articles. |
| 1:06.6 | OK, here we go. |
| 1:09.4 | Chapter 1 Valor. He drifted from the crowds to vape away his hangover, but strangers |
| 1:16.4 | kept coming to him, wanting to touch him. People collapsed in his arms and wept. |
| 1:21.6 | People holered from a distance. and he would |
| 1:25.0 | would have laughed from a distance. |
| 1:24.0 | Thank you, they said over and over, and he would try to reflect their gratitude back |
| 1:30.0 | because it was too much to absorb. |
| 1:32.0 | We love you, Rich rich appreciate you very much |
| 1:35.2 | May I give you a hug? You probably hate this shit |
| 1:39.4 | He was always on the move these days in 2023 because people wanted to see him, hear from him, |
| 1:46.5 | talked at him. |
| 1:48.4 | Here at the Pride Parade in Colorado Springs, where he wore a rainbow sash and banged a drum from his gold-colored 85 |
... |
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