Lt. Cmdr. Richard Jadick was awarded the Bronze Star with .../menu/standard/file/heroes2006.pdfLt....

Lt. Cmdr. Richard Jadick was awarded theBronze Star with “V“ for his efforts at Fallujah,Iraq. For his story, see Page 4.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CATE MEYERS/Stars and Stripes

STARS AND STRIPES, JUNE 14, 2006 • HEROES •

VALORFor more than four years

now, American soldiers,sailors, airmen and Ma-rines have been fighting

the war on terror. While politiciansand pundits argue the merits anddemerits of strategy and prosecu-tion, the military man or womanhas been slugging it out, every day,with a foe who is often unseen.

Day after day, they move amongthe chaos in Afghanistan or Iraq,trying to build bridges, to deliversupplies, to do as they have beenasked to help build a stable societywhere there was none.

They move among the people,wanting to trust but knowing theycannot. They endure dust stormsand boredom punctuated by mo-ments of fury, and months of long,sleepless nights away from theirloved ones.

Many have died or been maimed.And many, living and dead, havemet the test of fear and violencewith uncommon valor.

It’s hard for those who’ve notknown war to capture what it isthat these warriors experience.Where we could, we’ve left thetalking to the warfighter. Whenasked or prodded about heroicdeeds, the soldier or Marine willlisten almost quizzically, as if won-dering why you bothered to ask.“It’s just my job. … That’s what I’mpaid to do.”

In interview after interview,these servicemembers playeddown their own deeds. They spokeonly of the responsibility to theirfellow fighter and the privilege ofwearing the uniform.

An admirable humility shinesthrough. They point out that theywere part of a team; that someoneelse was the real hero, and evenwhen devastated by injuries, ex-pressing only that they wish to beback in the fight, because theyhave friends there — friends theywould never let down.

Yet, they are heroes.In this special section, Stars and

Stripes, the independent newspa-per authorized by the Departmentof Defense, looks at the deeds thathave earned medals of valor for theservicemembers profiled in thesestories. Those included stand assurrogates for the thousands ofothers so recognized.

Stripes focused on the highesthonors given for valor in a warzone, irrespective of rank. Thissection pays tribute to the warfight-er.

These vignettes aim to delvebelow the surface of press releasesand welcome-home parades todescribe what earning a medal forvalor is really like, and to honor theliving and dead who earned them.

This publication captures but aglimpse of the deeds U.S. service-members have performed in dis-tant lands. We honor all those whopersevere in the cause of liberty.

— PATRICK DICKSON/Stars and Stripes

A letter from the president

PAGE 2 · S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S · H E R O E S · JUNE 14, 2006

JUNE 14, 2006 · S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S · H E R O E S · PAGE 3

BY LEO SHANE IIIStars and Stripes

When Lt. Cmdr. Richard Jadicktells his story, he downplaysmany of the details.

He doesn’t recall the bulletsbeing that close.

He emphasizes that other teams facedmore danger than him.

He names nearly a dozen others whoare “the real heroes.”

And when asked why a 38-year-oldNavy urologist with a pregnant wife wouldvolunteer to go to Iraq, he seems confusedby the question.

“Nobody askedme, nobody toldme I had to go,”he said. “Butwhy do you takethis job? Why doyou join themilitary? I hadfloated withthese guys, and Iknew a lot ofthem. I thought Icould bringsomething to the table.”

Naval officials believe he did more thanthat.

In the middle of Operation PhantomFury, the second major operation in Fallu-jah in 2004 and one of the fiercest battlesU.S. forces have faced in Iraq, Jadick andhis team of young corpsmen treated hun-dreds of patients and saved dozens oflives.

The service awarded him a Bronze Starwith “V” device for his actions, and calledhim a hero.

But Jadick still isn’t completely sold onreceiving the award, and says the terriblememories he has from the time soundmore heroic to others than they do to him.

“Anybody who says they don’t remem-ber all of it is lying,” he said. “I saw somehorrible things. It sticks with you.”

‘Gut-wrenching fear’Just days after the birth of his daughter

in June 2004, Jadick deployed to Iraq withthe 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment.

The senior medical officer from CampLejeune, N.C., had limited experiencewith trauma cases but was confident thatmedical knowledge would be invaluableon the battlefield, even though he hadnever treated a patient at war and hadhimself missed action in the first PersianGulf War.

On Nov. 8, Jadick waited at a medicalcommand post just outside the city as hiscompany headed into battle. About 14hours later, after getting a call about aMarine with a chest wound who neededon-site assistance, he made his first housecall in a combat zone.

“That was the first real combat I’dseen,” he said. “There was lots of shootingand all kinds of other crap going on. Butthere, it wasn’t bad. We still felt secure.”

It took Jadick and his team severalminutes to find the wounded man in anear-ruined building. The team patchedup his wounds, carried him out and senthim back to the medical post.

While they were finishing up, the medi-cal team received another call, this time

from an ambush scene near the city’scultural center. They packed up and head-ed deeper into Fallujah.

“When we got off the track, there wasgut-wrenching fear,” he said.

The firefight was much more intensehere: This time, bullets were striking allaround their vehicle as soon as it stopped,and at least two rocket-propelled grenadesbounced off the armor without detonating.

And this time, it wasn’t just one wound-ed Marine. It was seven and counting.

For the first time, Jadick realized hewas risking his life.

“The only thing that kept me going wasthe other fear: the fear of failing every-body who was out there,” he said.

“You know, the fear offailure is a pretty motivatingfactor. It got me out of theambulance and kept memoving.”

‘You never know’Jadick dashed out of the

vehicle between automaticweapons fire and dove be-side a dying Marine, drag-ging him behind a nearbywall as he surveyed hiswounds.

The man was bleedingprofusely from a deep shrap-nel wound in his groin.Jadick ran through hisfirst-aid checklist, packingsterile gauze into the hole,applying pressure to thewound — searching for someway to slow down the bleeding.

After a few minutes, he realized it was afutile effort. He moved on to the nextpatient.

The Marine died shortly thereafter.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever had tomake that kind of decision,” he said. “Younever know if you’ve made the right call.”

Right or wrong, Jadick didn’t waste anytime. He taped up one gunshot victim,limped him back to the ambulance, thenmoved to the next one. In less than 30minutes, the rescue vehicle was full.

Jadick said the corpsmen with him latertold him bullets were bouncing withininches of him as he treated Marines anddragged them back to the armored ambu-lance. He said he didn’t notice them, butknew how fierce the firefight was basedon the wounds he was looking at.

By the time he left the scene, he wascovered in blood.

As the ambulance reached the nearbytransfer station and sent on the injuredMarines, another groin-wound victim was

brought to Jadick. The potentially fatalinjury was nearly identical to the oneJadick had treated less than an hour earli-er.

Not again, he thought.

The crew worked furiously to pack hiswound, set up an IV and get some fluidsinto him. Within minutes, the privatecame to and started asking questions.

“That was a huge morale boost, especial-ly for me,” he said.

Battalion commanders said the privatewas one of seven Marines saved byJadick’s quick thinking and bravery onthat outing alone.

But Jadick remembers the man whodied en route to the transfer station, andthe first shrapnel victim he couldn’t save.

“Did I do enough of the right things totry and stop the bleeding?” he said. “Ilearned a lot from working on [the secondgroin-wound victim], specifically. If [thefirst Marine] was to present to me 20minutes later …

“But the fact is, I was not good enoughduring that time to save that Marine.”

‘We needed to be closer’Those deaths — and the remarkable

recovery of the private at the transferstation — convinced Jadick he needed tomove his medical team deeper into thecity. He had already drawn up plans for afrontline ER operation in case it wasneeded, and told battle commanders hecould save lives if they could get himcloser.

“Grunts don’t want to have a whole lotof medical personnel with them to pro-tect,” he said. “But I told the [executiveofficer], ‘You need the two ambulances inthere to move people in and out. I can loadwhat I need on those ambulances.’ Heasked me how long it would take.”

They moved into an Iraqi governmentcomplex later that night, and prepared forpatients under the subdued glow of theirambulance emergency lights.

“Although it was supposedly securethere, the chaos gets to you,” he said. “Iknow there was a point as units movedaround where my aid station was the edgeof the perimeter. [The first night] all thecorpsmen who carried M-16s were up,and the rest of us were up keeping oureyes outside the wall.”

Name: Lt. Cmdr.Richard Jadick

Unit: 1st Battalion, 8thMarine Regiment

Medal: Bronze Starwith “V“

Earned: Nov. 8,2004, in Fallujah, Iraq

“The only thingthat kept me

going was theother fear:the fear

of failingeverybody whowas out there.”

— Lt. Cmdr.Richard Jadick

‘I didn’t do it by myself’

COURTESY LT. CMDR. RICHARD JADICK

Lt. Cmdr. Richard Jadick, right, and other servicemembers gather in December 2004 following the Battle of Fallujah.


Distinguished Flying CrossThe Distinguished Flying Cross was

authorized by President Coolidge in 1926(retroactive to 1918) to honor aviation’spioneers. Coolidge gave the first DFC toCharles Lindbergh on June 11, 1927.

For the DFC to be awarded for heroism,the act “must involve voluntary action inthe face of danger and be well above theactions performed by others engaged insimilar flight operations.”

Medal of HonorWith the brief exception of Wash-

ington’s badge, the U.S. military didnot authorize the award of any med-als for valor until the Civil War.

There are now three designs forthe Medal of Honor: Army, Navy(which is also given to Marines) andthe Air Force, which was not autho-rized its own design by Congressuntil 1960.

The language governing theaward calls for “conspicuous gallant-ry and intrepidity at the risk of life,above and beyond the call of duty, inaction involving actual combat withan opposing armed force.”

Silver StarCongress established the Silver Star

along with the DSC in 1918.The language governing the award of

the Silver Star calls for “gallantry inaction while engaged in combat againstan enemy or while serving in combatwith friendly foreign forces.”

The required gallantry, “while lessthan that required for the DistinguishedService Cross, must nevertheless havebeen performed with marked distinc-tion.”

Distinguished Service Cross,Navy Cross and Air Force Cross

In 1918, Congress passed an act that established a “Pyra-mid of Honor” that provided for lesser awards, so militarycommanders would have a way to recognize heroic actions ofdifferent degrees.

Among the first medals to be established below the Medalof Honor was the Distinguished Service Cross.

In 1919, the Navy Cross was established for the sea servic-es: the Navy, Marines and Coast Guard. The Air Force Crosswas established in 1960.

The language governing the award calls for “extraordinaryheroism in actual combat with an opposing armed force.”

Air Medal with “V”The Air Medal was established in 1942,

specifically to protect the prestige of theDistinguished Flying Cross.

Like the Bronze Star, the Air Medal canbe awarded for both valor (indicated bythe “V” device) and meritorious achieve-ment or service.

But the Air Medal is awarded only forcircumstances including participation inaerial flight.

Bronze Star with “V”The Bronze Star was established in

February 1944 (retroactive to Dec. 6,1941).

The original purpose of the Bronze Starwas to recognize the unique sacrifices ofinfantry soldiers. But defense officialsquickly decided to expand its award to allof the services.

The language governing the award ofthe Bronze Star includes “heroic or merito-rious achievement or service, not involv-ing aerial flight, while engaged in combat against an enemy orwhile serving in combat with friendly foreign forces.”

Military officials decided to create a special “footnote” to theBronze Star by authorizing a tiny brass “V,” for valor, thatcould be attached to the ribbon.

The device, also known as “V” device, Combat V, or CombatDistinguishing Device, is authorized by all the services.

Military awardsWhen dawn came on the second day,

the team saw their new hospital: a15-foot-square prayer room in the park-ing lot where a command center wasbeing established.

The space was ideal from a first aidstandpoint, with a plenty of room tomove patients around and a clear pathto get people and supplies quickly in-side.

But the area was a military night-mare: Tall buildings with snipers wereall around, and a nearby gateway sepa-rating the secure zone from no man’sland had been destroyed the previousday.

At one point, as Jadick looked over awounded servicemember about to enterhis new emergency room, he spotted anIraqi sniper taking aim from 50 yardsaway. As he took the man inside, heasked nearby Marines to “please” takeout that gunman.

They did.Later, a lieutenant patrolling the

parking lot was shot by an enemy snip-er and died before the team could treathim.

In the first 72 hours, more than 60wounded troops were brought in. Manyof the wounds were gruesome: skulltrauma, missing limbs, massive hemor-rhaging.

But Jadick said his instinct to getcloser to the fight was right. Of thenearly 100 patients they saw in the firstweek there, at least a dozen would nothave been saved if they had to waitthrough an extra trip to medical sta-tions outside the city.

‘It’s your job’During that week, Jadick got even

closer to the fight, traveling out withsome patrols to the front lines to meetwith the unit’s other corpsmen and thebattle-weary Marines.

“There’s a morale thing to that, whenthey know that their medical team isclose enough that if they get shot theycan actually have a fighting chance atgetting evacuated,” he said.

Most of the medical team stayed atthe hospital/prayer room for 11 daysbefore the regiment was ordered out ofthe city to secure another area.

Jadick said he continued to see pa-tients and gore after the Fallujah cam-paign — just days later, on Thanksgiv-ing, he helped save six more men buthad two die before they could be helped— but nothing that compared to the 12days during the siege.

When he returned stateside in Janu-ary 2005, he did not publicly discussdetails of what happened until a yearlater, when Navy officials awarded himthe Bronze Star. His wife, Melissa,knew little about his time in Iraq untilshe began reading news reports abouthis heroic acts.

Part of the reason for his silence wasa desire not to relive the horrors he hadseen, Jadick said.

“I still don’t really want to talk toanyone about it,” he said. “It was mylife then, and when I came home mylife was my daughter and my wife.None of them needed to mix.”

But a bigger part was Jadick’s insis-tence to this day that his actionsweren’t as heroic as those of the Ma-rines around him.

“I didn’t do it by myself. All I did wasshow up,” he said. “It’s just stuff you dobecause it’s your job.”

But for members of the 8th Regi-ment, that job was more than a typicalday in the office: Officials credit Jadickwith saving more than 30 U.S. livesduring the siege.

E-mail Leo Shane at: [email protected]

Gen. George Washington established the first U.S.military award, called the Badge of MilitaryMerit, in his General Orders of Aug. 7, 1782.

The badge was to be awarded in “not only instancesof unusual gallantry but also of extraordinary fidelityand essential service in any way shall meet with due

reward,” the orders said.“The road to glory in a patriot army and a free country

is thus open to all,” the orders stated.Since then, the U.S. military has sought to honor its

heroes by creating a “Pyramid of Honor” that recogniz-es varying degrees of distinguished service.

Navy Cross DistinguishedService Cross

Air Force Cross



Army Staff Sgt. TimothyNein had tried to preparehis soldiers for anything,

making sure their vehicles hadenough supplies and ammunitionfor three days if need be.

But even he was surprisedwhen he found his unit upagainst more than 30 insurgentson whatwassupposedto be aroutineconvoyescort.

“Sevento 10insur-gents iswhat youusuallyplan for, and we always push tobe ready and expect a fewmore,” said the squad leaderfrom the Kentucky Army Nation-al Guard’s 617th Military PoliceCompany. “We never reallyexpected to be fighting a forcethat huge.”

But they were ready. Nein andhis nine soldiers killed 27 insur-gents that day without losing asingle unit member.

Three of them earned SilverStars for their actions: Nein,medic Spc. Jason Mike and teamleader Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester.She was the first woman to re-ceive the Silver Star for actionsin Iraq.

Three other unit members,Spc. Ashley Pullen, Spc. WilliamHaynes II and Spc. Casey Coo-per, each earned the Bronze Starwith “V.”

The unit was trailing a convoyoutside Baghdad on March 20,2005, when it came under smallarms fire. Nein was familiar withthe area and directed the squad’sthree vehicles to a position be-tween the convoy and the attack-ers, who were hidden behind aberm near the road.

As they got into position, thefightescalat-ed. Arock-et-pro-pelledgrenadehit Nein’sHumveeandknockedhis gun-

ner, Cooper, unconscious.“I heard a pop, and saw the

whole vehicle covered insmoke,” said Hester, whoseHumvee was following closebehind.“It wasonly afewsec-onds,but wedidn’tknow iftheywereOK ornot. Butwhen we realized the driver wasstill going, we kept going.”

Soon the units could see doz-ens of insurgents coming atthem. Hester and Nein jumpedout of the vehicles and took cover

near the insurgents’ trench, andtook out several with RPGs andanti-tank guns.

Meanwhile, despite riding in aheavily damaged vehicle, sol-diers in Mike’s Humvee took upposition at the trench’s other end,to prevent any escape. But anoth-er wave of attackers came upfrom their rear.

Before long, three of the foursoldiers around the medic werewounded.

“One sergeantwas hit in the backand said hecouldn’t feel hislegs, but I couldn’tget to him becausehe was exposed,”Mike said. “Welaid down fire andpulled him backthe first chance wegot.

“It was adrenaline, the ‘flightor fight’ instinct, and luckily‘fight’ kicked in.”

He used his 9 mm pistol tokeep back the attackers as hetended to his injured teammates.As the enemy advanced closer,he dropped the handgun to wieldtwo machine guns, using one ineach hand to fight insurgents oneither side.

Some of the injured soldiersrejoined the fight as well:Haynes continued manning hisgunner post after taking a bulletin his hand, and Cooper came toand resumed his gunner post.

Meanwhile, Nein and the othergroup had also received fire

from behind their posts, but afew grenades from his unitstopped that ambush attempt.

Under cover from the othersoldiers, Nein and Hester en-tered the trenches to finish offthe remaining insurgents.

“We were under heavy fire theentire time — there were bulletspinging all over the place,” Neinsaid. “How we didn’t get shot, Idon’t know.”

They killed multiple gunmenand eventuallymade it to Mike’sposition. By then,the medic hadused an anti-tankgun to take outseveral moreattackers posi-tioned in a near-by building.Reinforcementsarrived soon after

to evacuate the wounded sol-diers.

All three Silver Star soldiershad faced combat before, butnothing to this scale.

When they returned to civilianlife last fall, Nein resumed hisjob as a printer for InternationalPaper and Hester returned tomanaging a shoe store. Mike is aself-described entrepreneur.

All three said it was an honorjust to be considered for theSilver Star. For Hester, being thefirst woman serving in Iraq toreceive it was a secondary issue.

“This shows that women cando anything the males can,” shesaid. “But this award doesn’thave anything to do with beingfemale. It’s for doing my job.”E-mail Leo Shane at:[email protected]

“It was adrenaline,the ‘flight or fight’instinct, and luckily‘fight’ kicked in.”

— Spc. Jason Mike

Name: Sgt. Leigh AnnHester

Unit: 617th MilitaryPolice Company

Medal: Silver Star

Earned: March 20,2005, outside Bagh-dad

Name: Staff Sgt.Timothy Nein


Medal: Silver Star


Name: Spc. JasonMike


Medal: Silver Star


Courtesy of U.S. Army

Spc. Jason Mike stands at attention at an awards ceremony at CampLiberty, Iraq.

Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester was a vehicle commander when the convoy wasattacked near Baghdad on March 20, 2005.

Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein — along with Mike and Hester — served withthe 617th Military Police Company in Iraq.

‘Bullets pinging all over the place’PAGE 6 · S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S · H E R O E S · JUNE 14, 2006

BY JULIANA GITTLERStars and Stripes

Days into the start of thewar in Iraq, a group ofArmy Apache helicopters

with the 101st Airborne Divisionoutflew their supplies by aboutfive days. They landed in theIraqi desert out of fuel and wait-ed fortheirsupplylines tobreakthroughvicioussand-stormsto reachthem.

Theyweresome of the first across the berm,48 pilots out alone in the desertwith little food or water.

“We were hurting pretty bad,”said Chief Warrant Officer 3Brian Mucci, now with the 1stBattalion 2nd Aviation Regimentat Camp Eagle, South Korea.“We had to wait for our people tocatch up.”

Fast-forward a few weeks, andthe Apache pilots continuedsome of the most dangerousmissions: serving air patrols forconvoys and doing “deep territo-ry” attacks in places in which thewar still raged hard.

One of those missions standsout: In April, Mucci was in therear aircraft in a line of sixApaches. They were sent to helpaccept the reported surrender ofan Iraqi armored division.

But the Iraqi Republican

Guard beat them to the divisionand forced it to fight. The groupof hundreds of tanks, armoredpersonnel carriers and othervehicles had hidden in a ravine,near where they were expectedto be waiting. After the five otherApaches passed, Mucci and hisco-pilot were in closest range.

A bright flash shot by, a soft-ball-size mass of lead. “We actu-ally thought we were hit,” hesaid. The blast flew so close theyfelt the pressure on their legs

inside the cockpit.Mucci fired almost everything

he had to repel the attack as hisco-pilot ducked through a bar-rage of fire. His summation: “Itwas 23 minutes of us getting shotat.”

An artillery round hit theground so close that dirt sprayedtheir windshield.

Mucci shot Hellfire missiles,30 mm chain guns and 2.75-inchrockets. He took out a tank, a

BRDM Armored Reconnais-sance Vehicle, an ammo cacheand 20 D-30 artillery pieces: “Wepretty much got a lucky hit onit,” Mucci said.

When reinforcements clearlywere needed, Mucci called in thegrid coordinates to a U.S. artil-lery unit, and two Army tacticalguided missiles quickly put astop to the assault.

When the Apaches reached“bingo fuel” — meaning just

enough to get back — they left.When they landed, Mucci hadbeen in the cockpit for six hours.

But the former enlisted Rang-er — who’s been on missions inHaiti and Panama — character-ized that six hours as all in aday’s work.

For that particular day’s work,however, Mucci received an AirMedal with Valor — in recogni-tion, he said, of the amount ofenemy assets they destroyedwhile under fire.

For his work months later,safeguarding a crash site after aBlack Hawk was shot down nearTikrit, Mucci earned an AirMedal for Achievement. Hepicked up one more Air Medalfor his time in combat.

But the medals don’t meanmuch to him, Mucci said.

“Nowadays, war really isn’tthat heroic,” he said. “Medalsdon’t make heroes. Heroes to meare firefighters or teachers.People who make a difference,who don’t have to. I was justdoing my job.”

He said his most memorablewar experience came during astop in Mosul in the north. Therewas nowhere to land on theArmy base that was his destina-tion, so he stopped in a field,which turned out to be a school.

Swarms of students and adultscame out to meet the pilots,giving him an interaction withlocal Iraqis most soldiers neverget to experience.

“I got a different picture” ofthe war, he said, “talking to thepeople.”

E-mail Juliana Gittler at:[email protected].

BY BEN MURRAYStars and Stripes

As tired as he was after a night onwatch at Saqlawiyah Bridge inFallujah, Lance Cpl. Ben Gonzalez

could sense that something had beenthrown at him.

He didn’t really see it coming, he said,but the bodyhas a funnyway of detect-ing move-ment, of per-ceivingthreats.

“You canfeel things,like, lobbingtowards you.You can feelthat,” Gonza-lez said.

When it landed with a “clink” just a fewaway from him and fellow Marine Cpl.Charlie Koczan, dozing on the groundnearby, it took only an instant to figure outwhat it was: a grenade.

With just a split second to react, Gonza-lez could see that his sleeping friend hadno idea what was about to happen, and hethrew himself on the man to protect himfrom the blast.

When it went off, the explosion rippedinto Gonzalez’s lower legs, feet and abdo-men, wounding two of the other three menfrom Company F, 2nd Battalion, 1st Ma-

rine Regiment in the fighting hole, butleaving the sleeping man unhurt.

For his action on that morning and hisefforts to protect a friend on June 18,2004, Gonzalez was awarded the SilverStar for conspicuous gallantry, a decora-tion he received this year in March.

Now back in his hometown of El Paso,Texas, and still recuperating from hiswounds, the 21-year-old said recently themost vivid memory he has of that morningwas looking down to see his boot half-tornoff his foot.

“I turned around and I saw my boot washalf off and my left leg was kind of crook-ed,” he said. The gear Marines wear inIraq is tough, he said, and he just couldn’tseem to grasp that the explosion hadshredded his footwear.

Things had been pretty quiet the preced-ing two or three weeks in Fallujah, Gonza-lez said. His platoon was rotating duty inobservation posts for an Iraqi NationalGuard unit controlling traffic at thebridge, and little was happening, he said.

He was just coming off a night watchwhen two men on a motorcycle sped byand threw the grenade at the four Ma-rines.

The first thing Koczan recalls was beingawakened by the “the boom and thescreams” and Gonzalez rolling off him, hesaid.

But Gonzalez said he can’t forget thelook on Koczan’s face when he woke up.

“He looked at me like it was my fault,”

he said. “He was like, ‘Oh [expletive],what’d you do?’ ”

As the only one not hit, Koczan wasimmediately dispatched to lead the de-fense, while the others attended to Gonza-lez’s wounds, which included serious

damage to his legs and hundreds of smallshrapnel wounds throughout his lowerbody.

“All the pain I’d ever felt before, it allhit me at once,” he said. “It felt like mybody was burning from the inside out.”

Gonzalez is normally somewhat of ajoker, so they tried to calm him by tellinghim to think of women, said Cpl. AveryWilliams, another Marine in the hole thatday. But humor could do little to help atthe time.

“You can only be so cheery in a situa-tion like that,” he said.

Gonzalez’s injuries were enough tocause doctors to doubt whether he wouldbe able to walk again, but by this springhe was able to get around with a cane.

Two years after the attack, he says hejokes about the incident with the othermen who were there that morning.

He ribs Koczan that he should have justjumped over him instead of on him, andKoczan said they have both caught flakfor “spooning” on the job. The jokes forKoczan, however, don’t diminish what hisfriend did for him.

Gonzalez’s effort to cover him was“pretty much the only reason I’m notmessed up right now,” Koczan said.

Gonzalez said his improving mobilityand experiences in recovery havechanged him deeply.

“It turned out for the best, I guess,” hesaid. “I’m a stronger person for it.”E-mail Ben Murray at:[email protected].

Name: Chief WarrantOfficer 3 Brian Mucci

Unit: 101st AirborneDivision

Medals: Air Medalwith “V”

Earned: April 2003,south of Baghdad

Name: Lance Cpl. BenGonzalez

Unit: 2nd Battalion, 1stMarine Regiment

Medals: Silver Star,Purple Heart

Earned: June 18, 2004,in Fallujah, Iraq

‘It felt like my body was burning from the inside out’

‘It was 23 minutes of us getting shot at’

Courtesy of Chief Warrant Officer 3 Brian Mucci

Apache pilot Chief Warrant Officer 3 Brian Mucci earned an Air Medal with “V” for missions flown in Iraqduring the first year of the war.

Courtesy photo

Lance Cpl. Ben Gonzalez receives a certifi-cate for his Purple Heart from Gen. WilliamNyland, assistant commandant of the Ma-rine Corps, at the National Naval MedicalCenter in Bethesda, Md., while his wifeMindy looks on.


BY LISA BURGESSStars and Stripes

It was Nov. 8, 2004, and the Marineshad just begun the major assault onFallujah, Iraq. HM3 Clayton Garcia

was sitting next to a seven-ton truck whenhe heard it.

“Corpsman, up!”The battle cry of the corpsmen has

launched such men into action since 1898,when the Navy first assigned them toaccompany Marines landing at Guantana-mo Bay during the Spanish-AmericanWar.

For Gar-cia, 22, thecall of“Corpsman,up!” wouldprompt himto exposehimselfrepeatedly toenemy snip-er and ma-chine gunfire as hedashed across an open field to help awounded Marine.

Quickly realizing that the Marine wouldbe killed in his exposed position, Garciagot three other Marines to carry the manback across the field of fire to safety.

The Navy awarded Garcia the BronzeStar with “V” for his actions that day.

“Now that I think about it, it was kind ofdumb of me, because I was kind of a sit-ting duck,” Garcia said in a telephoneinterview from Keflavik, Iceland, wherehe is assigned to the U.S. Naval Hospital.

“A big thing corpsmen are taught inschool is, ‘Don’t endanger our lives tryingto get to people,’ ” the Lytton, Iowa, nativesaid. “But I would definitely do the samething again.”

Garcia, who joined the Navy in June2002, was on his second Iraq deployment

when he got involved in the Fallujah bat-tle.

His first deployment, from late Marchto October 2003 attached to the 1st Battal-ion, 2nd Marine Regiment (Mechanized),was quiet.

Asidefrom heat-re-lated inju-ries, “noth-ing hugehappened,medi-cal-wise,”Garcia said.“I was sur-prised at thelack of con-flict we werein.”

But com-pared to thefirst tour, hissecond Iraqtour a year later, “was like night [and]day,” Garcia said.

This time, Garcia was attached to the1st Marine Expeditionary Force’s 2ndBattalion, 2nd Marine Regiment out ofCamp Lejeune, N.C., which was stationedat Camp St. Michael, a no-frills base inIraq’s notorious “Sunni Triangle.”

Garcia was assigned to Fox Company,3rd Platoon.

The big fight came in November inFallujah, where U.S. and coalition forceswere tasked with rooting out entrenchedinsurgents, including those loyal to AbuMusab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida inIraq.

Garcia’s battalion was called up toFallujah to assist with the main assault,with Fox Company assigned to conductsecurity for a mortar platoon.

No sooner had the fight kicked off thanFox Company came under heavy fire.

“I was sitting by a seven-ton, and I

heard ‘Corpsman, up!’ ” Garcia said.

Garcia grabbed his medical bag, ran upand over an earth berm, and onto theexposed field where a young lance corpo-ral lay, bleeding from his upper arm.

“He was screaming,” Garcia said. “Hewas in a lot of pain.”

This particular injury was very serious,because the bullet had severed the Ma-rine’s brachial artery, a primary carrier ofblood to the body.

As Garcia raced against time to keepthe Marine from bleeding to death, the

young man had an unusual follow-upquery.

“I remember him distinctively askingme if he’d ever be able to skateboardagain,” the corpsman said.

“I told him, ‘Yeah, I think so.’ ”Later on, back in the States, Garcia met

the lance corporal he helped rescue thatday.

“He said, ‘Thanks, Doc, for saving mylife,’ ” Garcia said.

“And that’s probably the greatest thinganybody’s ever said to me.”

E-mail Lisa Burgess at: [email protected]

BY JASON CHUDYStars and Stripes

The day started out badly for PettyOfficer 2nd Class Alan Dementerwhile he served with the 2nd

Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment nearNasiriyah, Iraq. And it never got anybetter.

By theend of thatday, March26, 2003,Dementerwould endup withshrapnel inhis shoul-der and leg,but hisactionstaking careof wounded Marines would earn him theBronze Star with “V.”

Dementer’s morning began with a callto evacuate some wounded Marines. Ashe was preparing to leave, the Navycorpsman found that his rifle wasn’tworking properly so he had to scrambleto borrow another.

After a couple more trips to treatmore wounded through the day, Dement-er and a few fellow corpsmen, who were

based in Camp Lejeune, N.C., settled infor a quiet evening in their tent.

The unit’s armorer sat working onDementer’s rifle when mortar roundsstarted to hit their position.

“All of a sudden, one hit next to thetent and shrapnel hit near the chief,” hesaid, “and we hit the deck.”

The sailors left the unprotected tentand found themselves in the thick of anenemy attack. “Two trucks were onfire,” he said. “Tracers were flying ev-erywhere.”

Mortars, bullets and rocket-propelledgrenades were hitting in the camp.

“Marines were yelling ‘corpsman up’in a 360-degree radius,” said Dementer,a 13-year Navy veteran. “They were hitall over the place.”

Dementer and the other corpsmenresponded to the calls.

“There were so few of us (corpsmen)… [we decided] to bring them to us,” hesaid about the wounded.

Almost immediately, a nearby ma-chine gun position was hit with whatDementer believes was an rocket-pro-pelled grenade.

One corpsman went to pull the wound-ed to safety. Dementer went to get hismedical supply bag, which was kept in anearby ambulance.

“I overshot the ambulance,” he said.

“Then a mortar landed in the middle ofthe courtyard not 25 yards away. Shrap-nel broke the concrete … and knockedme square over on my back.”

Small pieces of shrapnel had embed-ded in his shoulder and leg.

“I didn’t realize I was hit,” said theGladstone, Mich., native. “I rolled overand scooted back.” Grabbing his bag, hemade his way back to the other corps-men.

A wounded gunnery sergeant thencame over to their position and said hisMarines were pinned down next to thesouth wall.

“I said ‘Roger that,’ and grabbed mymedic bag with extra bandages and tookoff to the south wall,” he said.

Dementer stopped to patch up one ortwo wounded Marines, he said, beforemaking it to the wall. There, a lieutenantwaited to hoist him to the other side,which was under direct enemy fire.

“There was a couple second lull in thefire,” Dementer said, “and I jumpedover the wall.”

He treated six wounde[d Marines onthat side of the wall, eventually evacuat-ing them to the battalion aid station, andwas credited with helping 31 woundedMarines that night.E-mail Jason Chudy at:[email protected]

Courtesy of HM3 Clayton Garcia

Navy Hospital Corpsman Clayton Garcia was awarded the Bronze Star with “V” for helpingwounded Marines in November 2004 in Fallujah, Iraq.

Name: HM3 ClaytonGarcia

Unit: Attached to the 2ndBattalion, 2nd MarineRegiment

Medals: Bronze Star with“V”

Earned: Nov. 8, 2004, inFallujah, Iraq

Name: Petty Officer 2ndClass Alan Dementer

Unit: Attached to the 2ndBattalion, 8th MarineRegiment


Earned: March 26,2003, in Nasiriyah, Iraq

Garcia

‘Tracers were flying everywhere’

U.S. Navy photo

Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Alan Dementeraddresses friends, family and co-workers afterreceiving the Bronze Star.

‘I would … do the same thing again’PAGE 8 · S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S · H E R O E S · JUNE 14, 2006

BY KENT HARRISStars and Stripes

The soldiers of the 2nd Battalion,503rd Infantry Regiment hadn’tbeen in Afghanistan for long when

they were put to the test.A group of

scouts fromthe battal-ion’s Head-quarters andHeadquar-ters Compa-ny cameacross a manwhile on amorningpatrol onMay 3, 2005.He told them he had just been beaten upby a group of insurgents near BalucKalay.

Led by Staff Sgt. Patrick Brannan, thescouts investigated and came into contactwith an enemy force many times theirown numbers. Brannan’s forces engagedthe enemy and called in reinforcements.

Brannan, who has since left the Vicen-za, Italy-based battalion, was awarded theSilver Star for his efforts that day. Twoother soldiers from Chosen Company whocame as part of the reinforcements alsoearned the Silver Star in the battle, thefirst major fight in country for soldiersfrom “The Rock.”

Staff Sgts. Matt Blaskowski and Christo-pher Choay were at the battalion head-quarters in Qalat when they heard thattheir fellow soldiers were under attack.

Less than two hours later, they were inthe fight themselves, thanks to CH-47Chinook helicopters.

“The bird that I was on got hit by twoRPGs (rocket-propelled grenades),”Blaskowski said. “It landed safely, butfurther away from its original destina-tion.”

Still,Blaskowskiand hissquad — sixmen and twomachineguns — weredirected to ahilltop thatwould allowthem todirect fire onenemy positions in an orchard-filled val-ley below, keeping their foes from maneu-vering or retreating. The position was lessthan ideal, though.

“There were only a few rocks and theyweren’t very big,” Blaskowski said of thecover provided. And enemy forces soonrealized that they needed to eliminatethose on the hill if they had any chance ofwinning the battle.

Blaskowski and his men endured firefrom opposing ridge lines for four hours,maintaining fire of their own. Spc. TylerWilson was hit in the leg and back andseverely wounded. Blaskowski went tohelp him and was shot in the leg.

“After my bleeding stopped, I was OK,”he said, crediting the other soldiers withhim for treating him and Wilson.Blaskowski continued to direct the fight

until help could arrive to evacuate thewounded.

In the meantime, there was heavy fight-ing in the valley below. Enemy forceswere found to be centered along a stonewall and bunker. Apache helicopterscircled overhead,but were largelythwarted fromattacking manypositions by thetree cover theorchard provided.

Choay’s squadwas told to takethe position.

“When we hitthe ground, casu-alties had alreadybeen reported,”Choay said.

He and hissquad ran towardthe enemy posi-tion, using the tactics they were taught:Provide cover as your buddy advances,then advance yourself.

Choay said he was able to approach thewall from a flanking position because ofthe efforts of Blaskowski’s crew and othersoldiers who were largely holding theenemy’s attention. He found three enemycombatants on machine guns and anotherwith an RPG launcher. He killed threeand wounded another, who was then shotby another soldier. Approaching the bun-ker, Choay exchanged shots with some-one.

“He fired at me and I fired at him,”Choay said. “I think we both missed.”

Another soldier killed that enemy, leav-ing Choay free to toss a grenade into thebunker. Five bodies were later foundinside the bunker.

Choay said that he and his soldiers hadto rely on instincts honed by training atsuch places as Grafenwöhr in Germany.

“There wasn’t time to think,” he said.“We had to get to the objective quickly.You can’t just stay in one place. Some-body’s going to take casualties. Some-body’s got to move.”

“Everyone knew their jobs and did it,”Blaskowski said.

He said his first large firefight did havesome surprises, though.

“Everyone thinks in a large fight that itwould be so chaotic and noisy,” he said.“But it was really quiet at times.”

The fighting, which started late in themorning, would continue for hours.

Enemy forces eventually fled the fieldduring the night. Dozens of insurgentswere killed, though the exact numbermight never be known, because insur-gents often carry off their dead if theycan. No U.S. soldiers were killed, butseveral were severely wounded — includ-ing Wilson, who was paralyzed. Anotherlost a leg.

Both Blaskowski and Choay said theyfeel proud of their accomplishments thatday, but believe that many other soldiersin the unit deserve the same recognition.

“I think we were put in a situationwhere something had to be done and wedid it,” Blaskowski said. “But I don’t thinkit was something that anyone else in thebattalion wouldn’t have done.”E-mail Kent Harris at:[email protected].


When enemy forces wounded hisfellow soldiers on June 21,2005, Spc. Kurt-Alexander

Kaahui responded without hesitation,repeatedly exposing himself to Talibanfire in order to treat his comrades dur-ing a seven-hour battle.

Because ofhis actionsthat day, the32- year-oldOlowaluVillage, Ha-waii, nativewould berecommend-ed for aBronze Starwith “V,”having treat-ed and evacuated five soldiers whileunder heavy fire.

All of the soldiers would eventuallymake a full recovery.

Kaahui’s Vicenza, Italy-based Compa-ny C, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 503rdInfantry Regiment was in Afghanistan’sSharak Darreh river valley, hunting fora Taliban district chief who was be-lieved to be living in the area. The manhad led a recent attack that had de-stroyed the legitimate Afghan govern-ment district headquarters.

Within a half-hour of landing,Kaahui’s platoon was attacked by about50 Taliban fighters with assault rifles,machine guns and rocket-propelledgrenades, firing at them as they climbeda rocky hill.

One of the platoon’s soldiers was hitin the thigh and immediately moved to

a casualty collection point. Kaahui ranabout 300 yards across an open field, allwhile under direct enemy fire, to treatthe soldier.

After stabilizing the casualty, accord-ing to his award narrative, Kaahuimoved the soldier another 300 yards toa landing zone, continually monitoringand reassuring him that he’d pullthrough despite the heavy enemy fire.

While Kaahui was evacuating the firstcasualty, the platoon took more wound-ed. Kaahui took the company command-er’s rifle and moved back up the hill,“dodging intense enemy machine gunand RPG fire,” according to the narra-tive.

As Kaahui tried to move up the hill,he was frequently pinned down byenemy fire. Most frustrating was “notbeing able to be there when the callcame,” said the three-year Army veter-an.

“All you’d hear on the radio was ‘Wehave a guy down,’ ” he said. “We werepinned down and they were trying tomove me up.”

Slowly but surely, he made his wayup the hill to the casualties.

“You don’t think about it, you just doit,” said Kaahui about the day. “Savingmy guys, that was the big thing.”

Kaahui assessed the casualties, stabi-lized them for movement, and movedthem back to the landing zone, all underclear enemy fields of fire.

“Kaahui never hesitated or faltered,”his award narrative read. “Despite thenumber and types of casualties, theheat, terrain and unrelenting fire, Spc.Kaahui treated every soldier with care.”

E-mail Jason Chudy at:[email protected].

‘Something had to be done and we did it’

Name: Staff Sgt. MattBlaskowski

Unit: 2nd Battalion,503rd Infantry Regiment

Medal: Silver Star

Earned: May 3, 2005,near Baluc Kalay,Afghanistan

Name: Staff Sgt.Christopher Choay

Unit: 2nd Battalion,503rd Infantry Regiment

Medal: Silver Star

Earned: May 3, 2005,near Baluc Kalay,Afghanistan

‘Saving my guys … was the big thing’

Name: Spc. Kurt-Alex-ander Kaahui

Unit: 2nd Battalion(Airborne), 503rdInfantry Regiment

Medal: Bronze Star with“V”

Earned: June 21, 2005,in the Sharak Darrehriver valley, Afghanist

Blaskowski

JASON CHUDY/Stars and Stripes

Spc. Kurt-Alexander Kaahui was honored for treating and evacuating five soldiers while underheavy fire in Afghanistan.


• H E R O E S • J U N E 1 4 , 2 0 0 6 PAGE 13


When interpreters with CompanyC, 2nd Battalion (Airborne),503rd Infantry Regiment, report-

ed that Taliban fighters were radioing toone anotherthat theywere prepar-ing to attackthe Ameri-cans closingon theirpositions, thesoldiersdecided tocall theirbluff.

When theresultingbattle subsid-ed more than five hours later, dozens ofTaliban were dead and Sgt. Justin Hor-mann had earned a Bronze Star with “V.”

Hormann earned the award for savingthe life of another soldier and leading asquad that was “outgunned (and) out-manned,” according to the award narra-tive, and pinning down a force of Talibanfighters five times larger than his own.

By the end of the mission, more than 76Taliban were dead, including 42 killed as

a direct result of the actions of Hormann’ssquad.

The 22-year-old native of Melbourne,Fla., said that the June 21, 2005, missionin the Sharak Darreh river valley of Af-ghanistan had started as any other.

The Vicenza, Italy-based soldiers werehunting for a Taliban district chief whowas believed to be living in the area. Theman had led a recent attack that haddestroyed the legitimate Afghan govern-ment district headquarters.

Hormann’s platoon inserted near theheadquarters, then tried to trick the Tali-ban into believing that they were leavingthe area. Another unit was to move in toengage any enemy forces in the area.

Instead, Hormann and the rest of Cho-sen Company’s 2nd Platoon became thehunted — as well as the hunters.

“We ended up landing on a big nest or aweapons cache and we stirred them up,”he said about the Taliban.

The 25-man platoon was moving towardsome high ground when they were at-tacked by about 50 enemy fighters withrocket-propelled grenades, AK-47 assaultrifles and machine guns.

The unit’s 1st Squad was ordered tomove over a rocky hilltop and get closer tothe enemy.

When they had gotten within 30 feet of

the enemy, the squad leader was hit in thearm and suffered severe bleeding.

Seeing this, Hormann sprinted about 30feet to the staff sergeant and applied atourniquet that stopped the man frombleeding to death.

He then ordered the wounded soldiermoved back to the command post andtook charge of the squad, leading it backup the hill toward the enemy.

Hormann led the squad for the nextfour hours of fighting, during which anoth-er soldier was wounded, and the squadwas ordered to pull back. Grabbing thewounded man’s Squad Automatic Weap-on, Hormann lay down suppressing firethat allowed the squad to move down fromthe hill.

Eventually, the soldiers set up a patrolbase for the night, and later were flownfrom the valley.

A few days later, Hormann found outboth that the wounded soldiers would befine, and that he was being recommendedfor a Bronze Star.

“That was the last thing on my mind,”he said about the medal. “It was not reallysomething I was thinking about. It waskind of like a bonus after learning thateverybody was going to be fine.”

E-mail Jason Chudy at:[email protected].

BY VINCE LITTLEStars and Stripes

Huddled around a television inMarch 2003 at Al Jaber Air Base,Kuwait, F-16 pilot Steve Engberg

and other 524th Fighter Squadron mem-bers watched as President Bush deliveredhis ultimatum to Saddam Hussein: LeaveIraq or facewar with theUnitedStates.

“Therewas a feelingof uncertain-ty knowingthat some-thing wouldhappen butnot knowingexactly whatour role in that was going to be,” he said.“It was exciting at the same time to beable to apply the training I’d gotten eversince becoming a fighter pilot.”

The initial days of armed conflict anddaily combat missions seemed much likethe deployment’s previous three months,Engberg said. His unit from Cannon AirForce Base, N.M., had been helping withOperation Southern Watch, which moni-tored the no-fly zone over southern Iraq.

But his actions on March 30 — threesuccessful sorties over a 12-hour period,dodging heavy anti-aircraft artillery andsurface-to-air missiles throughout thenight — eventually earned him the AirForce’s prestigious Distinguished FlyingCross.

Engberg, of Burnsville, Minn., is now acaptain serving as assistant operationsdirector for the 36th Fighter Squadron atOsan Air Base, South Korea. Then, he wasa 25-year-old first lieutenant who took offfrom Al Jaber that night with his leadpilot to find regime targets in Baghdad.They were engaged by enemy ground firealmost immediately.

“It was not the first time we’d seen thaton deployment,” Engberg said. “It was thefirst time I’d experienced that level ofaccuracy or closeness to our formation. Itwas eye-opening to see how close it was …in relation to where we were.

“They were constantly throwing up(anti-aircraft) fire on different missions.How heavily you experienced it just de-pended on the mission. Due to wherethese targets were, the concentration of

enemy fire was a little thicker that night.”

Upon returning to Kuwait, the pilotsreceived information for a second sortie.

His F-16 this time fitted with laser-guided bombs, Engberg headed back outto strike Fedayeen targets in Karbala.“The maintainers did a great job of reload-ing us and we scrambled again,” he said.

Poor weather forced him to circle thearea at low altitudes, but he managed to

destroy the Fedayeen building. A shortwhile later, Engberg provided close-airsupport as his flight leader attacked anoth-er Baghdad location.

Despite the heavy enemy fire, he said,the possibility that they might not make itback never crossed his mind.

“I didn’t really have a chance to thinkabout the events that night until after-ward,” Engberg added. “It was so busy,all we could do was fly, land, [be given]the next target; fly, land, [be given] thenext target.

“I was just out there flying, doing what Iwas trained to do. It didn’t strike me asanything out of the ordinary or anything Ihadn’t been doing over … the previousthree months of my deployment.”

Engberg’s squadron emerged un-scathed, he said: Its personnel and air-craft all returned to Cannon with no battledamage.

“Not a single scratch,” he said. “Wenever lost one sortie due to maintenance,either. Those guys did a great job en-abling us to fly on a daily and nightlybasis.

“The entire squadron was extremelymotivated and excited to be out thereperforming their duties … I think we allperformed to an exceptional level whenthe challenge arose, met it with greatprofessionalism and great lethality. Wewere all just proud to serve the way wedid.”

And Engberg was happy he roomedwith two other lieutenants, including Chad“Skeet” Martin, who also earned the DFCand later joined him at Osan. The brandnew wingmen all faced the same highsand lows under difficult circumstances.

“I was feeling camaraderie with thoseother two pilots the entire time,” Engbergsaid. “Having that release to talk and hangout with those guys after different mis-sions helped a lot. They’re some of themost poignant memories I have from thatdeployment.”

E-mail Vince Little at: [email protected].

Name: Sgt. JustinHormann

Unit: Company C, 2ndBattalion (Airborne), 503rdInfantry Regiment


Earned: June 21, 2005,in the Sharak Darreh rivervalley, Afghanistan

Name: Capt. Steven VictorEngberg

Unit: 524th Fighter Squad-ron

Medals: DistinguishedFlying Cross

Earned: March 30, 2003,over Baghdad

‘Just proud to serve the way we did’

Courtesy photo

First Lt. Steve “Bjorn” Engberg stands next to an F-16 “Fighting Falcon” before flying acombat sortie, while deployed to Al Jaber Air Base, Iraq.

‘We ended up landing on a big nest … we stirred them up’

JASON CHUDY/Stars and Stripes

Sgt. Justin Hormann saved the life of anoth-er soldier and led a squad against difficultodds in Afghanistan.


BY SEAN KIMMONSStars and Stripes

Screams from fellow Marines beingattacked by insurgents in a mountain-ous area of eastern Afghanistan were

all that 1st Lt. Stephen Boada needed tohear.

The moans from the dying Marines ofCompany K,3rd Battal-ion, 3rdMarineRegiment,sparked arescue at-tempt led byBoada, thefire directionofficer forthe 1st Battal-ion, 12thMarineRegiment, on May 8, 2005.

In February, the 27-year-old from Bris-tol, Conn., was awarded the Silver Star forhis actions that day.

While on a dismounted patrol throughthe Alisheng Valley, Boada’s unit of about30 Marines began to pick up radio trafficbetween insurgents on their Icom scan-ners. Interpreters informed the Marinesthat the insurgents — concealed in therough terrain — were plotting an ambush.

“The Americans will not make it outalive,” Boada remembers one of the insur-gents saying on the radio.

To keep one step ahead of their ene-mies, the Marines tried to call in helicop-ter support. However, the weather did notpermit such action, so the Marines forgedahead in a movement-to-contact approach,said Boada, who was a forward air control-ler at the time.

A few Marines on top of a hill scannedthe area and spotted 10 armed individualswalking across the valley. A single rifleshot, believe to have been fired by one of

the individuals, prompted the Marines toopen up machine gun fire on the enemies,about 800 meters away.

The other Marines, including Boada,pushed toward their adversaries, whowere fleeing up the mountainside as themachine gun team on the hill providedsupporting fire.

While making their way up the ridge,Boada called for fixed-wing air support.

Four A-10 Warthogs came roaring overthe valley, unleashing 30mm cannon fireand 2.75-inch rockets onto the enemylocations, as Boada, with help from themachine gun team, called in target adjust-ments to the aircraft.

After about eight passes by the A-10s,the Marines searched for enemies killedor injured by the barrage, he said.

Lance Cpl. Nicholas C. Kirven came

across a body and called out to Cpl. Rich-ard P. Schoener to provide security.

Boada was about 25 meters from Kir-ven and Schoener when he heard thebursts of an AK-47 rifle and the screamsof both Marines, he said.

The rest of the Marines began to circlearound Kirven and Schoener, who werelying near a cave whose mouth spat outpersistent gunfire.

Using a smoke grenade for conceal-ment, Boada and Cpl. Troy Arndt made itup to the Marines.

“Corporal Kirven was dead, but theother one was still alive and talking to us,”he said.

Arndt grabbed Schoener but couldn’tdrag him away. Boada then tried to helpArndt, but Schoener’s flak vest ripped.Boada and Arndt had to take cover aftermore enemy gunfire came from the cave.

Boada fired his M-9 pistol and threwfour grenades into the cave to eliminatethe threat.

“No one was in left in [the cave], justbody parts,” Boada recalled.

Other Marines tried to resuscitateSchoener and Kirven, but were unsuccess-ful.

“Our efforts were futile, because theylost so much blood,” Boada said.

On top of their loss, the Marines couldnot get a medical evacuation and had tocarry both bodies back to the vehicles thatwere about six miles away, he said.

Although Boada has been called a hero,he said he believes that the two Marineswho didn’t walk away from that fight arethe real heroes. Arndt, who earned aBronze Star for his actions on that day,and the other Marines who were out thereare heroes to him as well.

“I wasn’t the only one out there. I wasjust put in a position to make a decision,”Boada said.

E-mail Sean Kimmons at:kimmonss @mail.estripes.osd.mil.

BY GEOFF ZIEZULEWICZStars and Stripes

With the typical stone-faced grit ofa Marine, Staff Sgt. AnthonyViggiani is modest about how he

came to be awarded the Navy Cross, theservice’s highest award.

“I’m honored to receive the award,”said Viggi-ani, 26, nowa drill in-structor atMarineCorps Re-cruit DepotParris Is-land. “Butfor what Idid, I wasjust doingmy job.When youhear aboutother citations, they did a hell of a lotmore than I did.”

Regardless of how Viggiani feels aboutthe award, the dedication to his “boys”while deployed to Afghanistan in 2004 isevident. Viggiani crept up on an enemyposition and took out three fighters. Andeven after taking a shot to the leg, Viggi-ani didn’t leave his unit.

“I was like, ‘I ain’t [expletive] goingnowhere,’ ” Viggiani said of attempts toget him first aid for his leg wound afterthe combat quieted down. “There was just

no way I was leaving my boys.”Viggiani’s June 3, 2004, patrol with

Company C, Battalion Landing Team, 1stBattalion, 6th Marines,22nd Marine Expedi-tionary Unit started outlike many days in theZabol Province of Af-ghanistan.

“We were rollingthrough and got intelreports to sweep avillage,” he said. “Andwe got reports that theyhad spotted someguys.”

Soon, Viggiani led asquad on a chase of theinsurgents, which ledthem into mountainousterrain that thwartedsome of the technologi-cal advantages normal-ly held by U.S. forces.

“We had no ideawhere our secondsquad was because ofthe mountains,” herecalled. “The radiotransmissions werepretty jacked up.”

Enemy forces began firing on one ofViggiani’s teams from a well-entrenchedcave position, pinning them down.

Under fire from another enemy posi-tion, Viggiani scrambled to lob a fragmen-

tation grenade into a cave holding theforces that had trapped one of his teamswith furious gunfire.

“I’ve got a rifle in myright, a frag in my left,”he said of his race downa ridge to take out thecave position. Soon,Viggiani saw a smallhole leading into thecave. The enemy wasclose.

“I saw a cloth in thereand fired three or fourrounds inside,” he said.“The cloth moved, and Isaw skin. I fired aboutthree, four more rounds.Then I pulled the pin onthe frag, dropped itdown, took two steps andplastered myself againstthe rock. [Expletive]went everywhere. Cloth,blood, everything.”

Soon, machine gunfire came in Viggiani’sdirection from across theway. He took a shot tothe leg as he and anothernoncommissioned officer

tried to avoid the fire. Air support sooncame through and cleaned out the enemyposition that had hit Viggiani.

Three to four hours after spotting theenemy forces, Viggiani’s company took

out 14 enemy fighters.Seeking medical treatment for his

wound during a lull in fighting, while theenemy was still precariously close, wasjust not an option that day, he said.

Instead, Viggiani focused on the otherguys who were injured, and how thingscould have been much worse.

During a Company C dinner in Rota,Spain, as the deployment was ending,Viggiani was recognized by those whoknew what he had been through.

“They read what I did, and I got a stand-ing ovation from all my peers,” he said.“That meant more than the award, be-cause they were there with me.”

For almost a year, Viggiani has beentraining the next wave of Marines as adrill instructor at Parris Island.

“It’s very challenging,” he said. “But Imiss the grunts.”

Viggiani still stays in touch with theteam and squad leaders who were withhim that day in Afghanistan.

Viggiani is reluctant to call himself ahero. “If somebody does their job, bringsthe boys home alive and accomplishes themission, that’s it to me,” he said of hero-ism. “All of my boys, I wouldn’t tradethem for anything.”

“It’s a brotherhood. When you get overthere, your mom, dad, brothers and sis-ters, they can’t help you. It’s the man toyour left and the man to your right. That’swhat matters.”E-mail Geoff Ziezulewicz at:[email protected].

Name: 1st Lt. StephenBoada

Unit: 3rd Battalion, 3rdMarine Regiment

Medals: Silver Star

Earned: May 8, 2005, inthe Alisheng Valley,Afghanistan

Name: Staff Sgt. AnthonyViggiani

Unit: Battalion LandingTeam, 1st Battalion, 6thMarine Regiment

Medals: Navy Cross

Earned: June 3, 2004,in Zabol Province,Afghanistan

Courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps

Despite a bullet in the leg, MarineStaff Sgt. Anthony Viggiani contin-ued to lead his squad against theenemy in Afghanistan in 2004.

‘There was just no way I was leaving my boys’

Courtesy of 1st Lt. Stephen J. Boada

First Lt. Stephen J. Boada, shown near the Afghanistan/Pakistan border in early 2005.

‘Americans will not make it out alive’JUNE 14, 2006 · S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S · H E R O E S · PAGE 15

BY FRED ZIMMERMANStars and Stripes

Marine Sgt. Keith Camardo says hedid nothing more than any otherMarine during his time in Iraq.

The hierarchy of I Marine ExpeditionaryForce begged to differ. He was awardedthe Bronze Star Medal with “V.”

Camardowas assignedto the unit asan individualaugmenteeFebruary toSeptember2004. Hishome unit is9th EngineerSupportBattalion atCamp Hans-en, Okinawa,where he serves as an explosive-ordnancedisposal technician. While in Iraq, Camar-do served with an EOD team pieced to-gether with Marines from four differentbases.

The team served primarily in the city ofMohammadia in the Anbar province.Camardo said he believes that during histime there, team members may have hadit worse than most other EOD teams:They were finding 500-pound bombsdaisy-chained together as one giant impro-vised explosive device. During its

seven-month tour, Camardo said, the teamresponded to more than 300 EOD callsand faced numerous ambushes and fire-fights.

“It was just mayhem every day,” saidthe 37-year-old Redwood City, Calif.,native.

The longest day, Camardo said, waswhen the Army entered its forward operat-ing base looking for help. He said anArmy convoy drove through an ambushthat “lasted for miles” and had to leavesome gear. The Army asked the Marinesto help by retrieving it. The Marinesobliged and sent a three-man EOD team,including Camardo, out to help by check-ing for booby traps.

“We were in an ambush for about fiveor six miles,” he said. “We got past thatand then started taking ambushes frompalm groves.”

He said the ambush went on for so long,they finally decided to stop at an intersec-tion. Camardo said a gas station withburning tanks was on one side and theywere taking fire from all other directions.The driver of the wrecker in which theMarines were riding parked the vehicle,then ran to take a defensive position.Camardo and his fellow EOD Marine thenclimbed atop the vehicle with their “desig-nated marksman rifle” and spotting scope.

“We were taking shots from about 700meters,” Camardo said. “I had to put myweapon down … he was engaging targets,but I couldn’t shoot since I was spotting.”

He said they stayed atop the wreckerfor about a half-hour before moving to theroof of a nearby building and continuingthe firefight. In all, the ambushes andfirefight lasted more than eight hours,Camardo said.

But one of the closest calls for Camardocame in September, near the end of histour, after an Army vehicle was disabledfrom an IED. The vehicle was moved offthe road and the area was secured, caus-ing a long traffic jam. To get the wreckerin to pick up the vehicle, Camardo said,traffic had to be released.

That’s when a suicide bomber in a carwas able to drive to the back of a SouthAfrican armored vehicle and detonate.Camardo’s Humvee was parked nearby;he was sitting in the rear seat with thedoor open. He said the blast threw him offhis seat and knocked him out for a second.

“I stepped out of the vehicle, took onebreath and then threw up for about ahalf-hour,” he said. He said that just thesuicide bomber was killed but the massiveblast scattered car parts everywhere; theengine flew about 50 meters — totallyoutside their perimeter.

Of his award, Camardo said, “I just didmy job. There were guys out there thatdid the same thing and they didn’t getanything.”E-mail Fred Zimmerman at:[email protected].

BY PATRICK DICKSONStars and Stripes

Hospital Corpsman Juan Rubio grabbed a Marinehe was on patrol with to repeat a warning theradioman hadn’t heard.

“I said, ‘Parrello, man, we need to get back behind thisbuilding.’ And as soon as we turned around, it went off.”

Their platoon leader had told them that the 5-gallonaluminum can on a nearby wall was the kind of thinginsurgents often used as amarker, to know when to setoff a bomb by remote.

“It knocked him into me,and threw me up against thebuilding,” the San Angelo,Texas, native said, likeningit to the desktop toy where ametal ball hits the stack andknocks the ball on the otherend free. “[It] knocked meout.”

Seconds later, Rubio came to. With rocket-propelledgrenades and machine guns roaring, he low-crawled overto 19-year-old Lance Cpl. Brian Parrello, who had ab-sorbed much of the blast. He was in bad shape.

“So I started working on him and I dragged him over awall … and asked another Marine — I had 15 Marinesthat I had taught Combat Lifesaver [skills] … I askedSergeant Davie to monitor him to make sure the bleedinghad stopped …

“And that’s when I heard the cry that there were twomore people out there.”

Directing cover fire at muzzle flashes in a tree line andshooting his own M-16, Rubio came first to a majorwhose name he does not recall.

Rubio brought him behind a building, and put a tourni-quet on his severed forearm. He grabbed another Marineto monitor the major. The Marine saw another wound.

“What color blood is it?” Rubio shouted.“It’s arterial!”“Holy s---!” Rubio said. “We’ve got another arterial!”Another tourniquet.Rubio went back and found out that his gunnery ser-

geant was shot twice in his right hand. He started an IVand left him with another Marine. He then got to a Ma-rine who was shot in the leg and the least critical of the

four.With their radioman down, they had to send two run-

ners back to the boats they’d been patrolling the Euph-rates on before an ambush had brought them into thesmall hamlet of Haqlaniyah, near their base at HadithaDam.

The boats and their firepower were nearby, but theyhad no sense of the battlespace, having lost radio contactwith Parrello. But with the runners directing fire, theyopened up.

“They saw the insurgents, and they waylaid on thoseson of a guns, oh my gosh,” Rubio recounted.

With the wounded on board, the group’s lieutenantgave the order: “Punch out! Punch out!”

They drove about a mile and a half upstream to threeHumvees waiting outside the base. They roared to thebase, where medics at a battle aid station could adminis-ter more care while they waited for the arriving Medevachelos.

Not sure about the fate of theinsurgents, Rubio and twoMarines got back in the Hum-vee to rejoin the battle. Theywere speeding off the basewhen one of the Marines sawblood on Rubio’s leg.

“[He] told me I was hit, and Isaid, ‘No, I’m not — it’s otherpeople’s blood,’ and he goes,‘No, doc, your pants are rippedand I can see it! Holy s---! Doc’shit!’ ”

“The corporal who was driv-ing slammed on the brakes,”Rubio remembers, and he bustsout laughing. “I flew from theback of the Humvee into thecab!

“And they turned around and they called back one ofthe birds and loaded me up.”

They were in radio contact with the other choppercarrying Parrello. Rubio had been talking with him onthe boat and in the Humvee, keeping him alert, reassur-ing him that he would be OK.

Rubio begins to choke up when retelling the scene.“He took 90 percent of the blast when —” he stops. “He

was standing right next to me when it went off …”Over the radio, he heard that Parrello had lost con-

sciousness. He never awoke.Rubio was awarded a Silver Star for his actions that

day. And, of course, a Purple Heart.At the hospital at al Assad, doctors looked at Rubio.

They told him that if he wanted some of the deeper piec-es of shrapnel taken out, he’d have to go back to theStates.

“I asked, ‘Can I live with it in my leg?’ and they said,‘Well, it’ll bother you from time to time, but sure.’ ”

A day and a half later, he hopped a convoy back to theunit.

E-mail Pat Dickson at: [email protected].

Courtesy of U.S. Navy

Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Juan M. Rubio gets a hugfrom one of his children after he was awarded the SilverStar.

Name: HM2 Juan Rubio

Unit: Small Craft Compa-ny, 4th Platoon, Camp

Medals: Silver Star, PurpleHeart

Earned: Jan. 1, 2006, inHaditha Dam, Iraq

He ‘told me I was hit, and I said: No, I’m not’

FRED ZIMMERMAN/Stars and Stripes

Sgt. Keith Camardo of the 9th EngineerSupport Battalion received the Bronze Starwith “V” on May 2.

Name: Sgt. KeithCamardo

Unit: 9th Engineer SupportBattalion


Earned: March 3 to Sept.15, 2004, in Mohammad-ia, Iraq

‘It was just mayhem every day’

Rubio



When he saw the RPG headedtoward him, Army Staff Sgt.Jason Pepper’s first instinct was

to push his men out of the way.“They were young guys, and they had

families andtheir wholelife ahead ofthem, too,”the28-year-oldfrom the16th Engi-neer Battal-ion said. “Iprotectedthem be-cause it wasthe rightthing to do.”

The attack came in May 2004 as his unitwas on patrol through the Iraqi city ofKarbala. Other units had been through thecity on a major offensive just weeks earli-er, and Pepper said his battalion had beenperforming reconnaissance in the city forseveral days leading up to the incident.

Even though the men had been throughthe area before, Pepper was edgy thatday. His mission route had been switchedjust minutes before the unit was sched-uled to leave, and he worried that the intelreports available weren’t current enough.

“I just had a bad feeling,” he said.As their patrol reached the downtown

area, a rocket-propelled grenade struckthe lead tank and the soldiers leapt intoaction. Pepper and his men got out oftheir vehicle, surveying the area withtheir guns raised.

The ambush site was a tight corridor —

as they looked to their left, one of theirown tanks pulled up close and partiallyblocked off their field of fire. Pepper saidas he turned around to cover the otherdirection, he saw an insurgent fire anoth-er RPG.

Instinctively, he dove into soldiers clos-est to him, knocking them behind a tankand out of the explosive’s range. The two

men suffered only some bumps and bruis-es as the round exploded.

As he stood to return fire, a remotebomb planted in a tree detonated just afew feet away. The blast caught him fullforce.

The only sign that Pepper was still alivewas the air bubbling through the bloodcovering his nose.

“I could still hear explosions aroundme, but I couldn’t do anything,” he said.

“I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t sayanything, and I didn’t really have controlof my arms.”

The soldiers around him took a momentto realize he was still conscious, and theyrushed him into an evacuation vehiclewhile they pushed back the insurgentattack. His whole firefight — from dis-mount to heroics to injury — took only afew minutes.

Pepper spent the next few weeks mov-ing from hospital to hospital before arriv-ing at Walter Reed Army Medical Centerin Washington, D.C., for months of rehabil-itation. Twenty-five surgeries over 16months rebuilt most of the bones in hishands and wrists, but he is blind and losthis sense of smell.

During his recovery at Walter Reed, hebecame a mini-celebrity because of hisname and rank — at the time, he was Sgt.Pepper — and even earned him a spot in aDoonesbury sequence. He said his fellowbattalion members saw the comic as theywere finishing up their tour and told himit was a morale boost knowing he wasbeing cared for.

He credits his family with getting himthrough the recovery: His wife Heatherand mother-in-law Denise have been byhis side through the surgeries, and his3-year-old daughter Naomi has even start-ed to help guide him around.

Pepper, who previously served fourdeployments in Bosnia and Kosovo, saidprotecting his fellow soldiers was his job,regardless of the consequences.

“If I could, I’d go back in a heartbeat,”he said. “That’s my job. I want to go backdownrange.”

E-mail Leo Shane at: [email protected].

BY ERIK SLAVINStars and Stripes

Less than two weeks into the invasionof Iraq, U.S. forces had advanced towithin 50 miles of Baghdad.

The 1st Armored Division’s 1st Battal-ion, 41st Infantry out of Fort Riley, Kan.,was about tobattle its wayacross theTigris Riverat As Sa-mawah.Then-com-mander Lt.Col. GeorgeGeczy re-ceived or-ders to at-tach anarmoredcompany, while sending one of his infan-try companies 50 miles away to whatwould become the Battle of Karbala.

The companies had to fight their way totheir new areas within 18 hours.

Geczy chose an infantry company ledby then-Capt. Marlon James, who wouldreceive the Bronze Star with Valor forleading his soldiers into an urban battleand pulling several wounded soldiersfrom harm’s way at great personal risk.

“Bottom line: I needed a smart, aggres-sive and experienced company command-er to pull off a complex mission … I chose

Marlon,” said Geczy, now a full coloneland joint operations chief at U.S. Europe-an command.

James and his company arrived onKarbala’s outskirts and saw through theirbinoculars, hundreds of Fedayeen Sadd-am paramilitary fighters sitting on therooftops. They were waving their weaponsinward, daring the soldiers to enter thecity of about 500,000 people.

“Tell my wife I did my best,” said onesoldier over the radio. Others sharedsimilar sentiments. James wouldn’t haveany part of it. “I don’t want to hear thattalk,” he said. “We are all going to make itout of here.”

James and three Bradley Fighting Vehi-cle platoons advanced and met with auto-matic weapons fire from Fedayeen ridingin the back of pickup trucks driven bywomen and children.

Faced with incoming fire, James madedecisions that have made it difficult tosleep at night.

When under fire, “you tell your soldiers,‘Don’t worry who is in the vehicle,’ ”James said. “As Americans, we seewomen and children and we don’t shoot.(The Fedayeen) knew that.”

As the company penetrated further inKarbala, casualties began to mount.James and his executive officer, 2nd Lt.Steven Thorpe, pulled six to eight injuredmen off the ground and got them insidevehicles. Thorpe later would be awarded aSilver Star.

By then, the enemy had begun reposi-tioning its troops, while reinforcementsarrived from other cities. The companywas getting bogged down as fire intensi-fied.

James told his troops, “Let’s go,” and

charged ahead in front.“It made those guys focus on me,”

James said. “I think anybody would havedone it as a leader. I really don’t think itwas worthy” of a Bronze Star. “It was justmy job.”

James’ C Company completed its mis-sion after 18 hours of fighting, protectingthe main attack’s flank at the EuphratesRiver. Some soldiers celebrated. Jameshad his mind on the next battle.

Today, James is a major and the person-nel chief for the 2nd Infantry Division’sFires Brigade at Camp Casey, SouthKorea. He says he loves the Army andwill stay in as long as he can. But Jamesmakes it clear to soldiers that he does notlove war.

“Don’t ask for war,” he said. “Yourname will be called. But be preparedspiritually and physically. You’ll deal withit when you leave that environment.”

And he denies his actions merited amedal. Instead, he speaks of 22-year-oldSpc. Larry Brown of Jackson, Miss., shotin the leg during the 2003 push to Bagh-dad. Brown escaped and hid in an alley,alert and talking to comrades.

That made later news of Brown’s deathall the more shocking, James said: Thebullet had severed an artery.

James, who said he’s called the youngsoldier’s mother over the years, saidBrown “lost his life April 5. I’ll neverforget it. That’s who the real hero is.”E-mail Erik Slavin at: [email protected].

Name: Staff Sgt. JasonPepper

Unit: 16th EngineerBattalion, 1st ArmoredDivision

Medals: Bronze Star with“V,” Purple Heart

Earned: May 7, 2004, inKarbala, Iraq

Name: Capt. MarlonJames

Unit: 1st Battalion, 41stInfantry Regiment, 1stArmored Division


Earned: Spring 2003, inKarbala, Iraq

‘We are all going to make it out of here’

ERIK SLAVIN/Stars and Stripes

Maj. Marlon James was awarded theBronze Star with “V” for his actions as acompany commander during the Battle ofKarbala in 2003.

‘I just had a bad feeling’

MICHAEL ABRAMS/Stars and Stripes

Staff Sgt. Jason Pepper, with the help of his wife, Heather, touches the 1st ArmoredDivision memorial monument following a ceremony for 1st AD soldiers who died duringOperation Iraqi Freedom.



Standing in the blood of his Iraqicounterparts, back to the wall withjust four bullets and a “folding flip

knife” to defend against onrushing insur-gents, Col. James Coffman Jr. had just onethought going through his head.

“I was not going to be on TV with themcutting my damn head off,” the SpecialForces officer said. “I would eat a grenadefirst. I was goingto go down fight-ing.”

Coffman, 51,fought, but hedidn’t go down.

Instead, ArmyLt. Gen. DavidPetraeus, com-mander of Iraq’sMulti-NationalSecurity Transi-tion Commandand Coffman’sboss at the time, personally awarded himthe Distinguished Service Cross for hisactions on Nov. 14, 2005.

The Great Barrington, Mass., nativespent most of his 32-year Special Forcescareer in psychological operations.

When Petraeus, the 101st AirborneDivision commander, was tapped to leadthe training and equipping of the armyand police in May 2004, he asked Coffmanto be “his eyes and ears out on theground,” Coffman said.

Eventually, Coffman became the soleAmerican adviser to the 1st Iraqi SpecialPolice Commando Brigade, a group ofhighly trained forces that belong to Iraq’sMinistry of the Interior.

In mid-November 2005, the minister ofthe interior called the commando unit toMosul to help gain control of the city,which was being overrun by insurgents.Most of the local police had abandonedtheir posts in fear for their lives.

At 10:30 on Nov. 14, Coffman’s comman-dos received an emergency call for helpfrom the only police station in the city thatwas still staffed. It turned out to be anambush.

The insurgents pinned down the com-mandos until Coffman and his men weretrapped with the police station to theirbacks, and a small retaining wall, about 8

feet high, in front of them.Then they hit hard, with “very intense

small arms fire and rocket-propelledgrenades,” Coffman said.

Casualties were heavy and immediate.All but one of the Iraqi officers were

killed or incapacitated within half an hourof the attack.

“The ground was literally running withblood,” Coffman said. “I always thoughtthat was just a figure of speech.”

With theirleaders down,the remainingcommandos“were in a fairlyexcited state,”Coffman said.

So Coffmantook over, usinghand signals tomime what hewanted the com-mandos to do when his fragmented Arabicfailed him.

Coffman kept fighting even after abullet smashed through the palm of hisleft, dominant hand and into the stock ofhis M-4 rifle, blowing the gun apart.

He dropped the useless weapon, pickedup an AK-47 from a dead commando, andbegan to fire with his right hand.

“I could feel the bones crunchingaround” in his hand, Coffman said, butthere was surprisingly little pain — “itwas adrenaline kicking in.”

The commandos fought on, repellingtwo charges by the insurgents.

Finally, about 3 p.m., “it was just myselfand one police commando that were ‘un-wounded,’ ” Coffman said, dismissing hisshattered hand as “a minor problem.”

“I was down to four rounds of ammuni-tion,” he said.

“The insurgents were getting ready torush us for the third time — a half dozen,dozen of them — literally, they were about

20 meters awayfrom us.”

He had vision ofbeing captured,paraded on televi-sion and behead-ed, like so manyother Westernhostages.

He made up hismind: “I wasgoing to go down

fighting.”Just at that moment, “the cavalry ar-

rived”: soldiers in Stryker wheeled com-bat vehicles from the 4th Infantry Divi-sion.

The quick response team quickly sub-dued the insurgents and, four hours afterit began, the firefight at the Mosul policestation was over.

Out of the 120 Iraqi commandos whohad responded to the call for help, 48were wounded and 13 were killed, includ-ing one wounded major who was taken to

a local hospital, kidnapped by insurgentsand later beheaded, Coffman said.

On the enemy side, “23 bodies showedup at local hospitals, and another 24 werewounded,” Coffman said. “We probablyhit them pretty hard.”

When Coffman learned that Petraeushad personally submitted him for theDistinguished Service Cross — the Army’ssecond highest award for valor, belowonly the Medal of Honor — “I was com-pletely floored,” he said.

“I would say I was able to keep sometraining and composure,” he said. “But Iwas no Audie Murphy.”

E-mail Lisa Burgess at: [email protected].

Coffman wears a cast as the result ofwounds suffered during a firefight.

Name: Col. JamesCoffman Jr.

Unit: Americanadviser to the 1st IraqiSpecial PoliceCommando Brigade

Medal: DistinguishedService Cross

Earned: Nov. 14,2005, Mosul, Iraq

“The ground was literallyrunning with blood.

I always thought that was justa figure of speech.”

— Col. James Coffman Jr.

‘I was going to go down fighting’

Coffman stands tall after being awarded theDistinguished Service Cross during a Bagh-dad ceremony.

Col. James Coffman Jr. responds to insurgent gunfire in Iraq on Dec. 3, 2005, while traveling with the 1st Iraqi Special Police Comman-do Brigade. He was the brigade’s American adviser.



After months searching for massgraves in Iraq, Army Reserve Ma-jors Lauralee McGunagle and

Kathryn Van Auken had grown used tothe horrors that lay just below the desertsurface.

But they weren’t ready to find 10 mor-tar shells hidden underground outsideKarbala. And they found them the hardway.

“They explod-ed in the middleof our (12-vehi-cle) convoy,”McGunagle said.“The asphaltbecame shrapnel,and nearly cutthe vehicles inhalf. These wereunarmoredSUVs. But every-one survived.

“We were very lucky.”Foreign troops serving with the pair

said it was more than luck. They lobbiedU.S. commanders to honor Van Aukenand McGunagle for their calm leadershipfollowing the blast, coordinating medicaland military backup among three foreignfighting forces and keeping everyone safe.

Army officials agreed, awarding each aBronze Star with “V” for “courage underfire” and protecting the lives of the civil-ian investigators with whom they hadbecome close friends.

The IED attack came Feb. 14, 2004, asthe recovery convoy moved just outside ofKarbala.

The two U.S. soldiers were accompa-nied by a team of Kuwaiti forensics ex-perts who had just investigated anothermass grave site, as well as a unit of Thaiengineers and a squad of Polish militarypolice.

The convoy had just turned onto araised causeway when the daisy-chainedshells were detonated, sending dirt andglass everywhere. Van Auken said thegroup had encountered IEDs in the past,but nothing this large or destructive.

“There were 10 huge craters in the

ground, and we didn’t know how manymore might be there,” she said. “Therewas a lot of screaming over the radio, anda lot in Arabic.”

The U.S. soldiers immediately tried tomove the vehicles out of the area, fearfulof a secondary attack. But the vehicles hit

were completely disabled, and several ofthe injured civilians were wanderingaway from the convoy, panicked anddisoriented.

So McGunagle and Van Auken rushedout of their vehicle and into the exposedroadway, scanning the area for signs of

another attack.“The Polish MPs were yelling at us to

stay in the vehicle,” Van Auken said, “butthe Kuwaitis needed help.”

McGunagle said the pair knew theconvoy was very vulnerable, and starteddirecting the still-functioning vehicles toform a perimeter and protect the Kuwaiticasualties. Both women split their atten-tion between administering first aid andreadying the group to defend themselvesfor the next attack.

That ambushnever happened.Rescue crewsand a Russianhelicopter escortarrived on thescene a few min-utes later andpulled the injuredinvestigators out.

The womendownplayed howimportant theirrole was in the aftermath, especially sincethe second attack never came.

But Army officials said just momentsafter the explosion the scene was filledwith large crowds of Iraqis and vulnera-ble team members and, without theirleadership, the situation easily could haveturned tragic.

McGunagle said the incident left all ofthe group shaken — “we knew how tocurse in four languages after that” — butalso brought the group closer together.The Polish MPs were impressed with thewomen’s fearlessness, and the woundedcivilians credited them with keeping themcalm and safe until backup arrived.

Van Auken said that’s just part of thejob description.

“It’s clichéd, but we were there to pro-tect and to serve,” she said. “And here,someone needed help.”

The two women spent 16 more monthstraveling around Iraq after the attack,helping to investigate and uncover moregraves. The roadside bombs didn’t discour-age them in the least.

“After what happened to us in Karbala,”McGunagle said, “we were ready foranything.”

E-mail Leo Shane at: [email protected].

BY JULIANA GITTLERStars and Stripes

Air Force F-16 pilot Chad “Skeet”Martin left Cannon Air Force Base,N.M., as scheduled in December

2002, to serve his three-month rotation inKuwait insupport ofOperationSouthernWatch.

As the de-ploymentprogressed, itbecame appar-ent theywouldn’t begoing home asscheduled.

In March 2003, armed conflict began,and Martin began flying real-world com-bat missions — 29 combat sorties over 26days, he said.

But in the first week of April 2003,Martin would take part in two sorties thatwould help alter the course of the newwar. For those flights, he later would

receive one of the Air Force’s most presti-gious awards, the Distinguished FlyingCross.

Martin, now a captain with the 36thFighter Squadron from Osan Air Base,South Korea, took off from Al Jaber AirBase, Kuwait, to offer close air support inan area outside Baghdad.

They encountered heavy anti-aircraftartillery and surface-to-air missiles beforethey finished their mission and returnedto Kuwait.

The pilots then received orders to flytheir second sortie of the day.

“When we took off, we didn’t knowwhere we were going,” Martin said.

In the air, the pilots learned their desti-nation: They were instructed to fly back toBaghdad to destroy anything and every-thing military at the international airport.

Under fire, Martin’s lead pilot took outan ammunition area. Martin spotted tanksnearby and dropped his payload.

At the time, it was a regular mission.That afternoon, watching the news back atbase, Martin watched as V Corps took theairport.

He realized he helped pave the way for

that victory, among the pivotal events ofthe early war.

“You know you had something to dowith that,” he said. “That’s exciting.”

Months later, he earned the Distin-guished Flying Crossfor those two sorties.

Martin said heremembers looking athis wife’s grandfa-ther’s shadowbox onthe wall at home dis-playing the Distin-guished Flying Crossthat man earned inWorld War II.

“Those guys inWorld War II reallyhad it hard. I felt like Ican’t compare,” Mar-tin said. “But it wasneat to have the same medal.”

Several pilots from his squadron alsoearned a DFC.

“If I deserved one, everyone in mysquadron did,” Martin said. “We all didthe same things.”

On a personal level, the experience is

one he’ll never forget. On a professionallevel, it has helped him as a pilot.

It’s also helped him as a mentor, prepar-ing new pilots for the reality of combat —even though training never can preparepilots fully for coming under attack, hesaid. “You can’t simulate the real thing.”

With anti-aircraft artillery, the enemy“throws lots of lead up hoping to hit you,”he said. Ballistic missiles look like rockets.Pilots duck away from their telltale trail ofwhite smoke.

Martin was fired on for the first timebefore the war even began, during Opera-tion Southern Watch on Feb 11, 2003.

“I probably didn’t realize” they werefiring at him, he said. “It happens so quick-ly you really don’t think about it much.”

During combat sorties, Martin said,pilots must stay focused. The dangerdoesn’t sink in until the wheels touchdown.

He remembers touching down after theairport sortie.

“I breathed a sigh of relief,” he said. “Idefinitely had a hard time sleeping thatnight.”E-mail Juliana Gittler at: [email protected].

Name: Capt. Chad T.Martin

Unit: 524th FighterSquadron

Medals: DistinguishedFlying Cross

Earned: April 2003over Baghdad

Name: Maj. LauraleeMcGunagle

Unit: Army Reserve

Medal: Bronze Starwith “V”

Earned: Feb. 14,2004, outside Karbala,Iraq

‘It happens so quickly you really don’t think about it much’

Name: Maj. KathrynVan Auken

Unit: Army Reserve

Medal: Bronze Starwith “V”

Earned: Feb. 14,2004, outside Karba-la, Iraq

Martin

‘The asphalt became shrapnel’

Maj. Kathryn Van Auken, left, and Maj. Lauralee McGunagle relax during a mission justsouth of Mosul, Iraq, in September 2004.



Until Navy Petty Officer 3rd ClassRobert Maldonado faced threemonths of Hospital Corps School,

the Los Angeles native never felt muchincentive to study.

But Maldonado had two strong motiva-tions to graduate and become afull-fledgedcorpsman.

The first,according to the25-year-oldsailor, waspride.

“This was thefirst school Iever took seri-ous,” Maldona-do said in atelephone inter-view fromKauai, Hawaii,where he is on shore duty at the NavalBranch Medical Annex at Barking Sands.

The second reason was more practical:The Navy sends hospital corps dropouts tothe fleet as undesignated seamen.

In other words, he said, “you fail, you’rechipping paint for 18 months.”

Little did he know that all those nightshitting the books would pay off in a singleday five years later and 6,000 miles fromhome.

In fact, the events of Sept. 30, 2005, inAfghanistan would not only earn Maldona-do a Navy Achievement Medal with Valor,they would also help convince him to sethis sights on becoming a Navy officer.

Afghanistan was Maldonado’s firstcombat deployment. He and Marinesfrom the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regi-ment, 3rd Marine Division, which is partof the III Marine Expeditionary Forcebased at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, arrived inJune 2005 at Camp Blessing, in the KunarProvince.

On Sept. 30, Maldonado and three Ma-

rines were bringing up the rear of a con-voy moving through the Korengal Valley— “bad-guy central,” as Maldonado calledit — when an IED exploded directlyunder their up-armored Humvee.

The explosion blew the doors off thevehicle and sent shrapnel into Maldona-do’s arms and legs.

“But I was actually the lucky one,” hesaid.

The gunner and the relief driver in theright front seat were both blown clear outof the vehicle, while the driver, a Marinesergeant, “absorbed most of the impact ofthe blast,” Maldonado said.

Ears ringing and “throwing up — Ithink it was radiator fluid. I was like ‘wow,my mouth tastes like chemicals,’ ” —Maldonado lurched out of the Humvee,pulling the unconscious driver with him.

The driver’s lower leg was blown open,bones sticking out “of a huge hole,” Mal-donado said. And blood so bright it lookedalmost pink was spurting rhythmicallyinto the air.

“I was like, “Oh God, this is arterialbleeding,” which can cause death in min-utes, Maldonado said.

“I put a tourniquet on him, tightened itas much as I can,” he said, then wrapped

and stabilized the sergeant’s leg, usingpart of the Marine’s M-4 rifle as a brace.

“Puking and stumbling,” Maldonadothen ran to help the machine gunner,“who was out in the road where he couldget shot at.”

The gunner also had a shattered lowerleg, which Maldonado splint-ed and bandaged after drag-ging the Marine to safetybehind the Humvee.

Finally, Maldonado soughtout the third Marine fromthe Humvee, who was on theother side of the vehicle,“half hanging off the cliff.”

And when Maldonadoinspected him, sure enough,“it’s the same exact thing” as the othertwo Marines: a splintered lower leg, with“his bones sticking out, as well.”

Maldonado had just finishing bandaginghis third patient and was checking backon the sergeant when Marines from theconvoy came racing back to help.

“They were like, ‘Wow, everybody’salready bandaged up!’ ”

The four wounded Marines and Mal-donado were evacuated by helicopter tothe combat support hospital at BagramAir Base.

There, a military doctor told the corps-man that his swift action had saved thesergeant’s life.

“I just thank God he was the closest oneto me, thank God he was the first one Iattended [to],” he said.

What the corpsman was surprised tolearn was that he might also have savedthe machine gunner.

“The doctor said yeah, that guy hadarterial bleeding, too,” Maldonado said. “Ididn’t see it [at the time] but I wasafraid,” given the nature of the injury.

“So I put on a tourniquet, just in case.”Editor’s note: Listen to audio clips of Maldonado’srecounting of his experience. Go to Stripes’ Website at www.stripes.com

E-mail Lisa Burgess at: burgessl@ stripes.osd.mil.


Master Sgt. Suran Sar had to reas-sess his battle plan after beingshot in the head.

“I knew the enemy was in the bunker,but I didn’t want to use a grenade becausewe didn’t knowwhat was inthere,” saidthe 39-year-oldsoldier. “Butas I lookedaround thecorner, hefired at meand hit myhelmet. Itbroke my chinstrap, hit thescrew holdingthat together.

“I fell back,and I told my guy to get a grenade inthere.”

Sar said the bullet felt like a hammerhit his head, but he suffered no long-termeffects. “The enemy” wasn’t as lucky, asSar and his team moved from structure tostructure eliminating them, now morecareful about sticking their heads out astargets.

Even before that Spring 2005 encounterin Paktika, Afghanistan, Sar and his team

had already had several close calls. Theycame under fire as soon as their Black-hawks started to land, and Sar had to rushunprotected at the enemy to help teammembers who were pinned down.

Blocking a bullet with his head on top ofthat convinced Army officials to hand himthe Silver Star for his heroism and selfless-ness that day. But Sar deflects that praise,saying all of the hardware he has earnedis a tribute to the men with whom heserves.

“This is a group of great Americans,very patriotic, who are serving their coun-try,” he said. “This team did exceptionalwork, and the enemy paid dearly.”

He calls the Army “his home,” andconsidering his family history, its noempty sentiment.

As a boy in Cambodia, he grew up dur-ing the reign of the Khmer Rouge andsuffered through his father’s imprison-ment and the execution of his older broth-er. His mother and two other brothersdied from starvation. Sar said when hearrived in the United States in 1981, hehad no family and no money.

He joined the Army in 1986, planning tospend a few years to earn money for col-lege, but said his commanders quicklybecame his close friends and convincedhim to stay in. They pushed him towardthe special forces, and he had conductedoperations in Africa, Kosovo and Afghani-stan before last spring’s second tour in

Asia.The March 5, 2005, raid where he was

shot was the first major firefight for hisnew team and, despite his headache, hecalled the mission a success. The grouprounded up several small caches of weap-

ons and cleared out a mountainside con-trolled by enemy forces, the first of anumber of strongholds they attacked thatspring.

In fact, Sar was awarded a Bronze Starwith V for actions just a few weeks later,in a similar firefight where his team foundthemselves several hundred feet belowenemy fighters on a hillside.

Sar said he had been attempting to lurethe shooters down from their point whencrossfire caught the team off guard. De-spite the strategic disadvantage, he saidthe team kept calm and stuck to its train-ing.

“If we had tried to retreat, we wouldhave all been dead,” he said. “So I gavethe order to charge the hill.”

He led the assault. The U.S. specialforces took the hill without any casualties;Sar said after his men killed two of theirs,the rest turned and fled.

“I knew my guys were better soldiersthan them,” he said. “There was no waywe were running.”

During their campaign in Paktika, the13-man team did lose one soldier. Sar saidthe fallen man is the true hero who de-serves recognition, not him.

“I told his family they didn’t lose a son,they gained 12 others,” he said. “We’re afamily now. This team earned this valor,not just me. I told them if they need any-thing, we’ll be there for them.”E-mail Leo Shane at: [email protected].

Name: Master Sgt.Suran Sar

Unit: OperationalDetachment Alpha 732,7th Special Forces Group

Medals: Silver Star,Bronze Star with combatV, Purple Heart

Earned: March-April2005 in Paktika,Afghanistan

Courtesy of Petty Officer 3rd Class Robert Maldonado

Petty Officer 3rd Class Robert Maldonado and other troops were wounded when a blasttook out their Humvee in Afghanistan.

Maldonado

Name: Petty Officer3rd Class RobertMaldonado

Unit: Attached tothe 3rd Marine Division

Medals: Navy Achieve-ment Medal with “V”

Earned: Sept. 30,2005, Afghanistan

Courtesy photo

Master Sgt. Suran Sar secured enemyweapons possibly used against his teamafter a March 5, 2005, firefight.

‘I was actually the lucky one’

‘There was no way we were running’


BY STEVE MRAZStars and Stripes

As the medical evacuation helicoptersped to the ridge where two wound-ed Special Operations Forces

troops waited, the flight crew heard omi-nous sounds over the radio.

“The whole aircraft’s quiet, and one ofthe pilots is like, ‘I think that’s gunfire,’ ”said Sgt. 1st ClassMakonen Camp-bell. “And I’mlike, ‘Yeah. I thinkit is gunfire.’ ”

It was April 11,2005. Talibaninsurgents hadambushed Afghanforces on a highmountain passnear Khost in anattempt to assassi-nate a formerAfghan militarycommander. U.S.SOF troops came to the aid of the Af-ghans, and two of the U.S. troops — Paul,an Army master sergeant, and Brad, anAir Force tech sergeant, identified bytheir first names only for security reasons— were wounded in the fighting.

Campbell — then a staff sergeant withthe 159th Medical Company (Air Ambu-lance), based in Wiesbaden, Germany —was serving as flight medic on the helicop-ter that was assigned to evacuate Paul andBrad.

When the helicopter got to the scene,crewmembers realized that they wouldnot be able to land on the ridge. Theywould have to use a hoist.

As Campbell was lowered for the rough-ly 150-foot descent, his radio was smashedagainst the side of the aircraft. Now hewould have to rely on hand signals tocommunicate with the soldier controllingthe hoist.

Campbell continued his ride down, butthe hoist stopped.

“So I’m just dangling there,” said the30-year-old from Charlotte, N.C. “I’ve gotmy 9 mil (9 mm pistol). I’ve got my M-4(carbine). I’m ready to return fire, but itgot to a point where I was like, ‘OK, I’mjust here. If they want to shoot me down,

they’re going to shoot me down.’ At thatpoint, I was like, ‘All right, I’m about toeat the big one on this one.’ ”

He started to give frantic hand signalsto put him on the ground. Campbell finallyreached the ground close to the woundedand was met by an Afghan Special Forcessoldier. Campbell noticed dust beingkicked up near his feet.

“There’s rounds actually coming by atmy feet,” he said.

Campbell hit the deck and made hisway to Paul, who was shot in the groinand in both legs, and Brad, who was shot

in the ankle but was returning fire fromthe cover of a small rock.

Campbell quickly attended to the criti-cally injured Paul and secured him in arescue stretcher that was lowered fromthe helicopter.

Next was Brad. Campbell got him in thestretcher and gave a thumbs-up to thecrew chief in the helicopter. Campbellthought he would have time to gather uphis gear before riding up with Brad. Camp-bell turned around, saw the sked wasgoing up and jumped for it.

“It looked like some straight ‘M:I III’stuff, some ‘Matrix’ stuff,” Campbell saidof his leap. “Didn’t think it would take itup so fast.”

The wounded were treated on the wayback to Forward Operating Base Salerno.When the helicopter landed, Paul andBrad were taken to the emergency room.Paul had lost four pints of blood into hisgut but survived. Brad also made it outalive.

U.S. and Afghan forces were creditedwith killing 12 insurgents. Another BlackHawk that was involved in the missionhad more than 50 bullet holes in it. Thepilot of that aircraft was awarded theSilver Star for his actions.

“It was a normal mission to us,” Camp-bell said. “Next thing you know, we hadthe whole SF Group coming up to thehospital, wanting to talk to us, congratu-late us, thank us — however you want tolook at it — for going out there to getthem. It was like, ‘That’s our job. That’swhat we do.’ ”

For his actions during the 45-minutemission, Campbell was awarded the Dis-tinguished Flying Cross on Dec. 2 in Wies-baden.E-mail Steve Mraz at: [email protected].

Name: Sgt. 1st ClassMakonen Campbell

Unit: 159th MedicalCompany (Air Ambu-lance)

Medals: Distin-guished Flying Cross

Earned: April 11,2005, near Khost,Afghanistan

‘I’m just dangling there’

PHOTO COURTESY OF MAKONEN CAMPBELL

Then-Staff Sgt. Makonen Campbell attends to a patient in Afghanistan. The flight medicearned a Distinguished Flying Cross for rescuing two troops in a separate incident.


BY KEVIN DOUGHERTYStars and Stripes

There was nothing really heroicabout it, at least not in the classi-cal sense.

On short notice, hundreds ofU.S. servicemembers deployed last fall tonorthern Pakistan to assist in earthquakerelief efforts. They were joined by mili-tary personnel from other nations, such asAustralia, Japan and Germany.

Given the lethality of the 7.6-magnitudeearthquake that struck the Kashmir re-gion Oct. 8, there was little choice.

“We had to get there,” said Army Col.Angel Lugo, commander of the 212thMobile Army Surgical Hospital. “Peoplewere dying.”

Ripping into villages, tearing apartcountless families, the quake killed anestimated 87,000 and left 3 million home-less.

And, to make a shaky situation evenworse, the harsh Himalayan winter waslooming.

“There’s no telling how many lives they(U.S. personnel) saved,” said Army Lt.Col. Sam Hamontree, deputy commanderof the 4th Aviation Brigade, which sentrotary aircraft, personnel and equipmentto the area.

The overall U.S. military response wasled by Navy Rear Adm. Michael P. Lefe-ver, who headed up the Combined Disas-ter Assistance Center in Pakistan.

It was formed in mid-October, when themajority of U.S. military personnel ar-rived. At one point, according to Lefever,the number of U.S. military personnel onthe ground exceeded 1,000.

Each service had a hand in the reliefeffort. Navy Seabees cleared roads andswung hammers; Navy ships and AirForce cargo planes delivered aid, fromrice and cooking oil to blankets and ban-dages; the Army dispatched a water purifi-cation detachment; a Marine rigging crewhelped Army and Navy helicopter crews;and the Army and Marine Corps medicalpersonnel ran separate hospitals near thequake’s epicenter.

“I don’t know how many people told me,‘You know, sir, this is why I joined themilitary,’ ” said Lugo, the MASH com-mander.

The initial U.S. force consisted of sever-al Army Chinook and Black Hawk helicop-ters sent to Pakistanfrom Bagram Air Basein Afghanistan. Navyand Marine aviators gotinto the act, too.

That airlift contingentwas eventually succeed-ed by Task Force Eagle,which supported andcoordinated much of the massive U.S.humanitarian relief effort. Headed byArmy Col. Robert Johnson, commander ofthe 4th Aviation Brigade, Hanau, Germa-ny, the task force worked out of a hangarat Qasim air base, located just south of thecapital city, Islamabad.

Other units, such as the 212th MASHtask force, the 267th Quartermaster Com-pany, and the Marines Combined MedicalRelief Team 3, moved north to be closer tothe disaster area.

“We all thought we’d be back by Christ-mas,” Johnson said.

Within weeks it was pretty clear theywouldn’t wrap things up that soon. Hospi-tal visits to the 212th MASH in Muzaffara-bad, for instance, continued to climb,averaging more than 300 a day by year’send.

Some personnel wound up staying inthe region until late March.

In the early days of the operation, “ev-erything was coming at us 100 miles anhour,” said Army Staff Sgt. David Gonza-les of the 4th Aviation Brigade. “Therewas no issue with falling asleep [atnight].”

The task force’s basic mission was

twofold, Johnson said.Obviously, the primary and overriding

purpose was to support the government ofPakistan in providing assistance to affect-ed areas.

But the United States also viewed theeffort as a way to “improve [its] strategicrelationship with Pakistan,” according tothe task force’s mission statement, some-thing Johnson and others were keenlyaware of.

“We had a chance to influence an entiregeneration in a known terrorist strong-

hold,” said Army Maj.Kevin Rants, the taskforce’s logistics officer.

They exerted influ-ence in subtle and notso subtle ways.

One way they wonover the skeptics,Johnson said, was to let

the Pakistani people see the U.S. militaryat work in a humanitarian operation.

Allowing health-care providers to travelto villages to offer medical treatmenthelped neutralize some of the negativesentiments that existed.

“When we first got there (to Pakistan),”Johnson said, “many thought we werespies or something.”

The goodwill the task force built upunraveled a bit in mid-January, when theUnited States bombed a suspected terror-ist hideout near the Afghanistan-Pakistanborder, said Hamontree, the deputy com-mander of the 4th brigade. The task forcewas further handicapped by the cartooncontroversy involving a Danish newspa-per and the Islamic prophet Muhammed.

Still, despite the suspicions and set-backs, soldiers like Rants and Gonzalessaid they felt good about what they andthe others accomplished.

“It was clear that we were neededthere,” Lugo said, “and that we broughtthe right stuff to save hundreds, thou-sands of lives.”E-mail Kevin Dougherty at:[email protected].

BY KEVIN DOUGHERTYStars and Stripes

It was a fitting encore for the last andmost decorated MASH in the U.S.

Army.The day after a 7.6-magnitude earth-

quake rocked Pakistan last fall, Col.Angel Lugo got a call from a friend whotold him the 212th Mobile Army Surgi-cal Hospital might be tabbed to go.

Based in Miesau, the 212th MASHhad just returned from an exercise inAngola, so the unit wasn’t expecting togo anywhere, especially since it was inthe process of being turned into a Com-bat Support Hospital.

When the Oct. 8 earthquake hit, manyin the 212th MASH were on leave. Lugo,the commander, was touring Heidel-berg, while his operations officer, Capt.Liza O’Neal, was in Paris.

“It was a long weekend,” O’Neal said,“and we were all out and about.”

But two weeks after the Kashmirearthquake had killed 87,000 people, atask force led by the 212th MASH wasin the Himalayas setting up a $4.5 mil-lion hospital, which the United Stateslater donated to Pakistan.

“You didn’t have time to think,” Sgt.Michelle Berres, a nurse, said of thehasty departure. “You just worked untilit was done.”

The MASH task force, which drewheavily from personnel at nearby Land-stuhl Regional Medical Center, estab-lished its base in Muzaffarabad, aboutsix miles from the epicenter. The 84-bedhospital included two operating tables,four wards, a power station, pharmacy,lab, radiology section and other fea-tures.

“Leave it to the Americans to bringthe Mayo Clinic to Pakistan,” O’Neal

said, recalling the sentiments of onenongovernmental organization worker.

Almost immediately, the hospitalbecame a magnet.

The medical staff began seeing pa-tients within six hours of their arrival.The first surgery occurred the followingday and by nightfall the intensive careunit was filled. Local clinics were nomatch for the MASH.

“We had the only ventilators” inMuzaffarabad, O’Neal said. “We had adozen. They had zero.”

Lugo and his staff planned for a de-ployment of up to 90 days, though many,including the boss, thought they mightmake it home by Christmas. Instead, thetask force, which included a detachmentfrom the 123rd Main Support Battalionin Dexheim, kept Operation Lifelinegoing until February.

During its four months in Pakistan,the MASH treated more than 9,200people, performed over 420 surgeries,visited at least 50 villages and gave tensof thousands of immunizations. It alsowelcomed many high-level dignitaries,from Vice President Dick Cheney toPresident Musharraf of Pakistan toactress Angelina Jolie in her capacity asa U.N. goodwill ambassador.

But in the end, it was the staff mem-bers’ bedside manner that won over thelocals. One of them became known forgiving younger patients “field trips”around camp. Other health care provid-ers ventured into remote villages toprovide basic medical care.

Lugo said he sensed that many Paki-stani patients were surprised by theamount of care and compassion theAmericans displayed.

“Word got out that we weren’t these‘mean Americans,’ ” Lugo said.E-mail Kevin Dougherty at:[email protected].

Courtesy of U.S. Air Force

U.S. Army Sgt. Kornelia Rachwal gives a drink of water to a Pakistani girl being flown from Muzaffarabad to Islamabad, Pakistan, aboardan Army CH-47 helicopter.

“We had to get there.People were dying.”

— Col. Angel Lugo

Fitting finale

Heroes for a devastated landJUNE 14, 2006 · S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S · H E R O E S · PAGE 23

S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S · H E R O E S · JUNE 14, 2006

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