Pennington-Nyheim, 41, of Marshalltown, has served 10 years in the sheriff’s office where she is a sergeant. She feels the same camaraderie as she did in the military, which is something she deeply appreciates.

“The best thing about my time in the military was the camaraderie,” Pennington-Nyheim said. “This is a paramilitary organization with a rank structure, having teams to lead. That was one of the draws that brought me here.”

Before joining the military, she was a high school teenager trying to find a direction for herself and was talking with a recruiter. Then, Sept. 11 happened, which was the catalyst to her enlisting.

“When that happened, it seemed like a calling,” Pennington-Nyheim said. “I was running around with a rough crowd and needed direction. The military really provided that.”

Contributed photo — Shelby Pennington-Nyheim takes her turn in the turret during her deployment to Iraq. The troops were rotated to ensure everyone had breaks.

The recruiter was a military police officer, which piqued her curiosity. She had never thought of law enforcement as a career, but was interested in pursuing it. First she had to attend a different camp, which Pennington-Nyheim said was referred to as “fat camp” at the time, to learn some of the physical aspects that would go along with the job.

“That was interesting, because I thought I could knock out 100 push-ups, no big deal, but I was doing them completely wrong,” she said, laughing.

Afterward. Pennington-Nyheim went to a 16-week Army basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood in the Missouri Ozarks with a focus on serving as a police officer. Following her graduation, she was sent to Ft. Lewis near Tacoma, Wa. and was assigned to the 170th Military Police Company (MPC).

Iraq

Pennington-Nyheim was deployed to Iraq twice. The first time was with the April 2003 invading United States forces. She was a member of a high-level security team, alongside Blackwater Security, protecting Paul Bremer, who was President George W. Bush’s envoy to the country.

“Paul Bremer was basically running things over there,” Pennington-Nyheim said. “At the time, I did not realize how high-profile of a job that was. Paul Bremer was the number one most threatened man in the world at the time. I did not realize the Secret Service had actually declared that at the time.”

She said Bremer, under order from President Bush, was the one who would say certain parties, such as the Sunni Ba’ath, had to be shut down.

“He would go and enforce what had to be done,” Pennington-Nyheim said. “We did a lot of that. There were a lot of meetings with sheiks. We were constantly going to different meetings with Bremer, outside the wire doing something.”

The Army soldiers who helped protect Bremer were considered the “big guns,” she said. Bremer rode in the suburban vehicles manned by Blackwater, and the military would send a squad of Humvees along. The soldiers did not interact with Blackwater very much, but the security team, which included former CIA agents, did provide specialized training.

Despite the high profile aspect of her duty, she never had to fire her weapon. Pot shots were taken at them because they had snipers. The force she was with had to “run the roads, and get from point A to point B,” and she was the driver.

“If people got in my way, I had to move them out of my way, because my VIP (very important person) had to get to his location,” Pennington-Nyheim said. “The gunners would do everything they could do to get people moving, out of the way. There was a brush guard on the Humvee, and I would have to move vehicles that way.”

There were a couple times driving on the Iraq roads when an IED (improvised explosive device) went off in her Humvee. She remembered one instance when a truck was in front of her, and then the road exploded.

“I remember seeing green grass floating through all the debris and smoke, and yelling at my gunner to get down, pulling him down,” Pennington-Nyheim said. “At the time, I was a team leader and told my driver to back up 300 meters and start doing 360 security. The smoke finally started to clear and I could see them up ahead. That was real close and scary.”

She also had to be alert whenever they were about to drive under the overpasses. It was common for people to drop grenades into the Humvees.

“We had to do quick maneuvers, switching positions with the VIP so that when we got to the other side, the VIP would be opposite of wherever he was at,” Pennington-Nyheim said.

Protecting Bremer was her primary duty, but there were some other missions she was tasked with. Platoons would rotate, and Pennington-Nyheim ended up at the Abu Ghraib prison for six weeks. She served her time in one of the prison towers, and was not present, nor was she aware, of the abuse inflicted on prisoners by soldiers in the 372nd MPC.

“We were in the tower. We weren’t inside at all,” Pennington-Nyheim said. “Our main concern was mortars being lobbed at the retaining wall and the tower.”

The mortars were so frequent, she does not think she could count them all, but she does have a reminder of the experience.

“There was a hole in the wall, and the Marines would go out after we would get mortared and just do a security check around the outside wall,” Pennington-Nyheim said. “One of the Marines picked up one of the fins off of an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade). He picked it up and threw it up in my tower, and said ‘Here. Keep that.’ So I actually have that.”

After deployment

Following her first deployment, Pennington-Nyheim returned and got married to her first husband, who was deployed not long after she returned stateside. As Pennington-Nyheim waited for her second deployment, she became ill and was ordered to get well. While recovering, she learned her husband was shot in Kuwait.

“When I got that call, I remember falling to my knees and bawling,” Pennington-Nyheim said. “The rear-detachment sergeant-first-class came over and picked me up off the ground and said, ‘Let’s go get some answers.’ She was embracing me and took care of me.”

Her husband almost did not survive as he lost five pints of blood. He could not walk for roughly one year. Her mother stayed with her husband to help him recover during Pennington-Nyheim’s second Iraq deployment.

That deployment involved training Iraqis how to be police officers. She taught them how to shoot firearms, and in return they received intelligence.

“There was a mass grave we uncovered at one point,” Pennington-Nyheim said. “It was shocking. I was a young girl. It never went through my young brain that a mass grave was something I would be experiencing. I was very naive.”

Eventually, smells began having a big effect on her, and she discovered she was pregnant. Pennington-Nyheim was sent home three days later and was able to have Thanksgiving with her family.

“I got a call Thanksgiving night from another soldier’s wife who asked me if I knew what had happened,” she said. “She informed me my team was injured. The truck I led . . . my staff sergeant had taken my spot, was sitting in the team leader position. The truck got hit with an IED and my driver was killed. My squad leader was killed. My gunner survived, but she is a double-amputee now.”

To honor those who died, Pennington-Nyheim has worn a bracelet bearing the names of her team since 2005. She was then assigned to be the non-commissioned officer in charge of the “arms room.”

After her service was over, Pennington-Nyheim returned to Marshalltown and enrolled in college. Wanting to continue her law enforcement career, she went to school full-time for five years and earned a degree in criminal justice with a minor in psychology. Then she heard about an opening at the sheriff’s office, submitted her application and got an interview and a job offer.

Transitioning back to civilian life, Pennington-Nyheim had to learn how to deal with the public in a different way. Her career consisted of working with soldiers who were accustomed to the same things she was.

“When you’re dealing with the civilian public, it’s completely opposite,” Pennington-Nyheim said. “They do not care what your rank is. So, that was an adjustment. I’m not dealing with military people anymore. I had to learn how to be a civilian again, and there’s no class you can take to help you with that.”

Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.