Marine Awarded Silver Star
While the country is focused on people like Hasan and the fake SEAL controversy, I want to take a moment to remind people that our military is full of heroes – like those SEALS, who do what they do without fanfare unless an alleged mistake is made.
(Photo by Hayne Palmour IV – North County Times Staff photographer)
The North County Times, near Camp Pendleton, published a GREAT story about one of our Marines being awarded the Silver Star. The Silver Star is the nation’s third highest award for gallantry and valour. The only way to earn one is through heroism in combat. Combat! It was established in 1918 as the Citation Star and in 1932 it was redesignated as a medal with a retroactive provision that allowed servicemen as far back as the Spanish-American War (1898) to receive it for gallant actions.
On paper, the mission for Camp Pendleton’s newest recipient of the Silver Star seemed straightforward enough: Travel overnight to an isolated mountainside cave where a suspected Taliban leader was hiding, kill or detain him, and destroy a reportedly large weapons cache.
In practice, the July 2008 mission in western Afghanistan was a deadly, grueling, four-hour firefight as a large number of Taliban fighters rained automatic weapons fire onto a group of U.S. Marine and Army Special Forces troops.
When it was over, an estimated 40 anti-government fighters were dead, including the primary target. But so was one American. And an additional nine U.S. Marines and soldiers were wounded, five seriously.
In the intervening 240 minutes from the start of the firefight, then-Capt. Daniel Strelkauskas suffered shrapnel wounds to his hands and ran through the “kill zone” to drag a critically injured staff sergeant to safety.
Strelkauskas continued to rally his troops. He also directed a 2,000-pound bomb strike that allowed the Americans to maneuver to safety.
For those actions, the 32-year-old Marine major was awarded the Silver Star on Wednesday, the third-highest award a Marine can receive for bravery in battle.
Read more about this story and what Maj. Strelkauskas had to say at the North County Times.
MissBirdlegs in AL
November 26th, 2009 at 8:05 pmThanks for this, CJ. Hope everyone has given thanks for our fine military members and their families today. I’m thankful for you all!