By Christian Hill | The Olympian
Spc. Erik Oropeza has received the Distinguished Service Cross for saving the lives of three soldiers while deployed to Iraq with a Fort Lewis combat brigade.
The decoration is the nation’s second-highest award for combat valor, only surpassed by the Medal of Honor. It is awarded for extraordinary heroism in action.
Oropeza, 22, of Los Angeles, is the 21st soldier to receive the decoration since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001.
He is the second soldier to earn the award while stationed at the Army post during that time. In October, staff Sgt. Christopher Waiters, a graduate of Timberline High School, received the award for his heroism in April 2007 while deployed to Iraq with another Stryker combat brigade. He has transferred to Fort Wainwright, Alaska.
Lt. Gen. Joseph Peterson, deputy commanding general and chief of staff of Forces Command, pinned the medal on Oropeza during a Feb. 13 ceremony at Fort Irwin in California, where Oropeza since has transferred. His family and one of the soldiers injured in the incident attended.
“Spc. Oropeza is the epitome of the warrior ethos,” Peterson said during the ceremony, according to a story by Army Public Affairs.
On the morning of May 22, 2007, he was driving one of two Stryker armored vehicles securing Main Supply Route Tampa, 10 miles north of Taji. He was an infantryman assigned to the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division.
A firefight ensured, and a bomb detonated underneath the vehicle. Oropeza said he saw a flash of white light and the next thing he knew, he was looking at his feet. The second Stryker vehicle was undamaged.
Uninjured, he pulled himself out of the driver’s hatch and crawled into the vehicle’s passenger compartment through a hatch at the top of the vehicle as insurgents shot at him.
The force of the explosion had blown a hole in the floor of the vehicle. Staff Sgt. Kristopher A. Higdon, 25, of Odessa, Texas, and Pfc. Robert A. Worthington, 19, of Jackson, Ga., were killed. Three other soldiers were seriously wounded, including one who Oropeza thought at the time had also been killed.
