Gunfighters earn Bronze Star, Army medal for combat valor

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Brian S. Orban
  • 366th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, Idaho (ACCNS) --  Four members of the 366th Civil Engineer Squadron here earned the U.S. military's fourth highest award during a ceremony Jan. 8, for their individual bravery and heroism while serving in Iraq.

Capt. Stephanie Root, Tech. Sgt. David Fitzgerald, Staff Sgt. Michael Pray and Staff Sgt. Sjon Higgins earned the Bronze Star for their efforts in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Sergeant Fitzgerald also received the Army Commendation Medal with Valor for his life-saving actions there last June.

The members are assigned to the squadron's explosive ordnance disposal flight and assigned to bases in Iraq during regularly scheduled deployments in 2006.

"In total, these four ... heroic warriors conducted over 740 missions, disarmed over 400 improvised explosive devices, completed 68 unexploded ordnance responses [and] conducted 85 post blast analysis which all culminated in over 61,000 explosive ordnance items successfully destroyed," said Col. Thomas Laffey, 366th Mission Support Group commander.

Captain Root commanded the EOD flight at Sather Air Base, Iraq. In nearly five months, the captain and her 31-person team destroyed roadside bombs, improvised explosive devices and enemy weapons caches within a 500-mile radius around Baghdad. This included a 27-mile section of the most heavily used north and south supply route used by U.S. and coalition forces in the region.

During her time in Iraq, the captain helped during 23 bomb-clearing operations, which were far from predictable, she said.

"When you're out there, you don't know what was running through [the bomb maker's] mind when he was creating the IED," Captain Root added. "Because you're dealing with an unknown and it does have explosives in it, things can get unpredictable and things can go wrong very quickly."

"Whenever you're responding to a mission, it's different every single time," Sergeant Fitzgerald added. "You just know there's a bomb there and we need to take care of it, but you don't know how big it is, how many there are or who's watching you."

In addition, Captain Root and her team had to deal with sniper and mortar fire as they worked to disarm or defuse these improvised bombs.

"Whenever you have somebody shooting at you ... it elevates the stress level," Captain Root said. "We had some missions where you could tell they were just shooting [at random], and there were others where they were zeroing in on us. The closer the [enemy fire] got, the more stressful it got."

According to her medal citation, the actions of the captain and her team "significantly hindered anti-Iraqi forces from conducting attacks against coalition forces."

Sergeant Fitzgerald received the Bronze Star for several acts of courage, including one following an enemy rocket attack at his forward operating base. One of the rockets exploded 10 meters behind the sergeant, throwing him to the ground. The explosion caused blasting caps in his team's response vehicle to prematurely detonate. Despite injuries to his arm and leg, the sergeant rushed over to pull a team mate from the vehicle then removed the remaining explosives from the vehicle to avoid further risk.

Before he sought medical attention for his injuries, Sergeant Fitzgerald conducted a post blast analysis at the site and positively identified the types of rounds used in the attack. According to his medal citation, the information he collected provided valuable intelligence data for his supporting unit.

Sergeant Fitzgerald then earned the Army Commendation Medal after he helped save the lives of four military members June 14. After disposing of an improvised explosive device, the sergeant's team was returning to base, an armored vehicle in his convoy flipped over into a water-filled canal. With water rapidly filling the crew compartment, the sergeant was the first person to jump down into the canal to free the five troops trapped inside. After the rescue, he helped save critical information stored in the vehicle and provided security at the site until a recovery team arrived nearly five hours later.

"As soon as I saw those guys land in the ditch, I said, 'We need to pull those guys out,' " the sergeant said. "It's just my typical response -- you see somebody who needs help and you help them. You don't stop and think about what you're going to do."

During his five months in Iraq, Sergeant Pray also faced the threat of enemy fire as he worked to destroy or disarm enemy explosives. During one memorable mission, he led an air insertion into Rushdi Mullah -- a location where high concentrations of insurgents operated. Carrying 115 pounds of equipment, he marched two kilometers under constant threat of sniper and mortar fire and the threat of IEDs.

The sergeant spotted a bomb in an area across a canal where his bomb disposal robot couldn't reach. He built an improvised tool to span the 20-foot gap to place a disruption charge to "safe" the device. Crossing the canal on a narrow plank, he spotted the bomb's initiator and realized it was booby-trapped. He immediately dropped a countercharge and evacuated with his security team.

While disarming another IED in Mamudiyah, Iraq, a secondary device detonated 25 feet from his position. After checking for possible casualties, Sergeant Pray re-established the team's "safe" area, scanned the area for possible triggermen and swept the area for other tertiary bombs before continuing his original task.

Sergeant Higgins faced similar circumstances during his five months in Iraq. During one mission, he led a counter-IED operation in the Jabouri Peninsula region and spent 48 hours in this hostile area. As U.S. forces engaged the enemy nearby, he located, cleared and destroyed six enemy weapon caches, including more than 2,700 bombs and bomb-making materials during the operation. His actions cut down IED-type attacks along a main U.S. supply routes nearby.

Sergeant Higgins conducted post blast analyses after more than 60 enemy attacks. He collected crucial evidence and reconstructed the enemy devices to help identify emerging enemy tactics, techniques and procedures.

"We need to try and find out what happened there. We want to find out what it was that blew up -- what type of explosives, what type of electronics or how it was set off. That gives us the intel later to try to figure out who the bomb maker was or if there's a group in the area that's targeting a specific group or all forces in general."

The sergeant compared this mission to a civilian police crime scene investigation. During sweeps, he scanned for any remnants of the bomb casing, wiring or detonators which intelligence experts piece together to identify who made it.

"Sometimes we find a chunk of fragmentation that's only [the size of a quarter] and jagged but you can see ... that it was from a certain sized projectile," said Sergeant Higgins.

The evidence the sergeant collected helped military intelligence officers in Iraq to find the insurgents responsible for terrorist bombings in the region, according to information in the sergeant's medal citation.

During his comments at the ceremony, Colonel Laffey highlighted several comments by Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, current Army commander for the Multi-National Corps serving in Iraq to illustrate the heroism of the four Gunfighters honored at the ceremony.

"...in the debate over the events happening in Iraq, I think that some people have lost sight of the daily acts of heroism that our service members perform here in the name of service to our nation and to freedom," the general said.

The general illustrated the sacrifices of those serving on the ground who gave their lives to protect the lives of their fellow soldiers and Airmen -- sacrifices that often go unnoticed, he said. These sacrifices included those made by people like Tech. Sgt. Walter Moss, an EOD technician with the 366th CES, who died last March during an IED "safing" mission in Iraq. It also includes the sacrifices made by three EOD troops from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, who died Jan. 7 when a car bomb exploded near Baghdad.

"General Chiarelli referred to Sergeant Moss, our EOD heroes and all of our nation's warriors when he closed his statement by saying, 'This is just another example of the daily acts of heroism, courage, and selfless service our service members perform for each other and for their Iraqi counterparts,' " Colonel Laffey added.