America's North Shore Journal

2009 saw America's North Shore Jour­nal cover the sto­ries of many Amer­i­can war­riors, and many who were rec­og­nized for their hero­ism in action. One Medal of Honor was awarded, posthu­mously, to an Army non­com. The Com­man­dant of the Marine Corps also hinted that a liv­ing Marine would receive the Medal but it did not hap­pen. There were other heroes, fire­fight­ers and police offi­cers and EMTs who gave their lives in the line of duty. There were the civil­ian heroes, who couldn't just stand by and watch and some of them paid the ulti­mate price for their actions. So, there are not just ten, but these ten rep­re­sent all of America's heroes this year.

Sergeant First Class (SFC) Jared C. Monti, Tenth Moun­tain Divi­sion — Medal of Honor

The enemy fight­ers had estab­lished two support-by-fire posi­tions directly above the patrol in a densely wooded ridge­line. SFC Monti imme­di­ately returned fire and ordered the patrol to seek cover and return fire. He then reached for his radio head­set and calmly ini­ti­ated calls for indi­rect fire and close air sup­port (CAS), both danger-close to the patrol’s posi­tion. He did this while simul­ta­ne­ously direct­ing the patrol’s fires.

When SFC Monti real­ized that a mem­ber of the patrol, Pri­vate First Class (PFC) Brian J. Brad­bury, was crit­i­cally wounded and exposed 10 meters from cover, with­out regard for his per­sonal safety, he advanced through enemy fire to within three feet of PFC Bradbury’s posi­tion. But he was forced back by intense RPG fire. He tried again to secure PFC Brad­bury, but he was forced to stay in place again as the enemy inten­si­fied its fires.

The remain­ing patrol mem­bers coor­di­nated cov­er­ing fires for SFC Monti, and he advanced a third time toward the wounded Sol­dier. But he only took a few steps this time before he was mor­tally wounded by an RPG. About the same time, the indi­rect fires and CAS he called for began rain­ing down on the enemy’s posi­tion. The fire­power broke the enemy attack, killing 22 enemy fight­ers. SFC Monti’s actions pre­vented the patrol’s posi­tion from being over­run, saved his team’s lives and inspired his men to fight on against over­whelm­ing odds. SFC Monti epit­o­mizes what it means to be an NCO. Because of his per­sonal sac­ri­fice and self­less ser­vice to the Army, the men of his patrol are alive today and con­tinue the fight.

Sgt. 1^st Class Jar­ion Hal­bisen­gibbs, Oper­a­tional Detach­ment – Alpha 083 — Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice Cross

With Chaney and Lind­say blown from the build­ing, Hal­bisen­gibbs real­ized he was wounded and alone inside the tar­get build­ing. As enemy fire had destroyed his radio and dam­aged his night vision device, his vision was impaired and he was unable to con­tact the remain­der of the assault force to request sup­port. Tak­ing imme­di­ate and deci­sive action, Hal­bisen­gibbs leapt to his feet and quickly cleared the room.

Mak­ing his way out to the court­yard, SSG Hal­bisen­gibbs imme­di­ately passed a ver­bal sta­tus report to his ODA indi­cat­ing his sta­tus but could con­tinue to fight. Dur­ing the course of relay­ing this mes­sage, he imme­di­ately came under small arms fire at close range from an enemy posi­tion not yet cleared by the national police assault force.

As Hal­bisen­gibbs reacted to the threat, he was shot in the abdomen; the bul­let trav­el­ing through his stom­ach and exit­ing at his hip. Ignor­ing this sec­ond debil­i­tat­ing gun­shot wound, he engaged and killed the enemy within 12 feet of his position.

Hal­bisen­gibbs then took cover and ral­lied the remain­der of the Iraqi National Police and assisted in secur­ing the objec­tive area. Only when the enemy was elim­i­nated and the objec­tive was secure, did he reveal the seri­ous­ness of his wounds and accept med­ical attention.

Lance Cpl. Brady Gustafson, 7^th Marine Reg­i­ment — Navy Cross

The patrol came under heavy fire from machine guns as well as rocket-propelled grenades from hid­den insur­gent positions.

One of the RPGs hit Gustafson’s MRAP, pierc­ing its armor, ren­der­ing the dri­ver uncon­scious and par­tially ampu­tat­ing Gustafson’s right leg.

Despite his injuries, Gustafson remained vig­i­lant on his M240B machine gun, locat­ing and accu­rately fir­ing on sev­eral insur­gent posi­tions, some as close as 20 meters from the vehicle.

He remained in the tur­ret, reload­ing twice and fir­ing over 600 rounds, while Lance Cpl. Cody Com­stock, an Ander­son, Ind. native, applied a tourni­quet to his leg.

After regain­ing con­scious­ness, the dri­ver, Cpl. Geof­frey Kamp, an Indi­anapo­lis native, put the vehi­cle in reverse and pushed the dis­abled vehi­cle behind them out of the kill zone.

Not until both vehi­cles were safe from the heavy insur­gent fire and all the Marines had evac­u­ated the burn­ing vehi­cle did he allow him­self to be removed from the tur­ret for med­ical treatment.

Staff Sgt. Zachary J. Rhyner, 21^st Spe­cial Tac­tics Squadron — Air Force Cross

Within the first 15 min­utes of fire, Sergeant Rhyner was wounded along with three team members.

“I was pulling secu­rity when I got shot in the leg,” he said. “The rounds hit my left thigh and went through my leg and hit another guy in the foot.”

He imme­di­ately felt pain and adrenalin.

“There was nowhere to go. I grabbed the wounded guys, but we were trapped by the enemy,” he said. “I was call­ing in air strikes and fir­ing, while mov­ing the wounded down [the cliff].”

Sergeant Gutier­rez could see insur­gent fire com­ing from the build­ings on the hill­tops above them and was try­ing to get across the river to meet up with Sergeant Rhyner.

“Zach and I were in con­stant radio con­tact,” he said. “I could hear the ammu­ni­tion, sniper fire and rocket-propelled grenades with mul­ti­ple blasts. We tried to push to the north to col­lo­cate with Zach’s team, but every time we pushed up river, it put us in an open line of fire.”

“My team ran across the freez­ing river. The water came off the moun­tains and we were 100 to 200 feet beneath the enemy, like fish in a bar­rel,” said Sergeant Gutierrez.

As the enemy sur­rounded them, Sergeant Rhyner, who was being treated for his injuries by Capt. Kyle Wal­ton, the spe­cial forces team leader, directed mul­ti­ple rock­ets and gun runs from AH-64 heli­copters against enemy positions.

Staff Sgt. Travis Atkins, Tenth Moun­tain Divi­sion — Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice Cross –more–

Atkins and sev­eral other U.S. sol­diers were on patrol at about 11 a.m. on Fri­day, when they observed four sus­pi­cious Iraqi cit­i­zens, accord­ing to a U.S. Army inci­dent report. The Iraqis tried to run away, but Atkins caught one of them and took him onto the ground in an effort to restrain him.

The Iraqi man det­o­nated a sui­cide bomb attached to his vest, killing him­self and Atkins, accord­ing to the report.

Staff Sgt. Con­rad Begaye, 503^rd Infantry Reg­i­ment — Sil­ver Star

Keep­ing his com­po­sure against over­whelm­ing odds, Begaye directed and encour­aged his fel­low sol­diers under heavy fire. One para­trooper had been shot in both legs and was still tak­ing fire. Begaye called out to him to play dead, know­ing the enemy would shift their fire away if they thought the sol­dier was killed — quick think­ing that likely helped to save that soldier’s life.

Ignor­ing his own injuries, Begaye moved a wounded sol­dier to a nearby cave to pro­tect him from enemy fire. Using a radio, he called his higher head­quar­ters and directed mor­tar fire onto enemy posi­tions – essen­tially end­ing the bat­tle. Then he moti­vated a sol­dier to orga­nize a defen­sive perime­ter of Afghan sol­diers to pre­vent their unit from being harassed or overrun.

Spe­cial­ist Michael Carter, Com­bat Doc­u­men­ta­tion & Pro­duc­tion Spe­cial­ist 55^th Sig­nal Com­pany (Com­bat Cam­era) — Sil­ver Star

On Dec. 12, 2008 Spc. Michael Carter, Com­bat Doc­u­men­ta­tion & Pro­duc­tion Spe­cial­ist 55^th Sig­nal Com­pany (Com­bat Cam­era) was awarded the Sil­ver Star for actions in the Shok Val­ley of Nuris­tan Province, Afghanistan April 6, 2008.

Spc. Carter was one of 10 Sol­diers awarded Sil­ver Stars for that engage­ment, but unlike the Sol­diers of Oper­a­tional Detach­ment A (ODA) 3336 on the raid, Spc. Carter is a Com­bat Cameraman.

Staff Sgt. Jef­frey Moe, 2^nd Bat­tal­ion, 10^th Spe­cial Forces Group (Air­borne) — Bronze Star with Valor Device

In order to pro­vide cov­er­ing fire for the move­ment of the trapped team, Moe vol­un­tar­ily stepped directly in to the line of enemy fire and began sup­pres­sive fire on the enemy position.

“I just wanted to do the right thing and help my fel­low Sol­diers out,” Moe explained. “I didn’t think too much about it, I just reacted. I knew things were get­ting pretty thick and they needed help to get out.”

Despite rounds of small arms fire impact­ing inches from his head and being shot in the right leg, Moe con­tin­ued to place effec­tive fire on the enemy until the sniper team was safely under cover.

His courage and self­less­ness allowed the sniper team to move to a secured posi­tion where the wounded sniper could receive imme­di­ate med­ical treat­ment and be evac­u­ated out of the area.

Sgt. James Carter, 505^th Para­chute Infantry Reg­i­ment — Bronze Star with Valor Device

Dur­ing this patrol, a mas­sive impro­vised explo­sive device det­o­nated inside a cul­vert, caus­ing a cat­a­strophic effect under a U.S. Navy EOD vehi­cle. The enor­mous explo­sion threw the vehi­cle high into the air, caus­ing it to land on its side; trap­ping the three Navy EOD per­son­nel inside.

Carter risked his life by enter­ing the burn­ing vehi­cle in order to extract the trapped per­son­nel. As a result of the attack, two of the EOD mem­bers were killed in action, how­ever Sgt. Carter’s was able to save one mem­ber of the team in an act of true bravery.

1^st Lt. Colin P. Boyn­ton, train­ing team leader embed­ded with 1^st Infantry Com­pany, 2^nd Kan­dak, 2^nd Brigade, 201^st Corps, Afghan national army — Bronze Star with Valor Device

As his team walked along a ravine near a river, about a mile from post, Boyn­ton and 13 oth­ers were sep­a­rated from the patrol, he said.

Boyn­ton had been involved in fire­fights with the enemy before but never on a patrol, he said.

“We did all the pre­plan­ning, but the enemy knew we couldn’t fire into the vil­lage, and they were very patient, attack­ing us at a weak moment,” Boyn­ton said. “They waited where most of the patrol had turned on a bend in the trail. We were stuck in a kill zone.”

One Afghan sol­dier was shot through the knee and within min­utes three oth­ers were hit with enemy fire from the vil­lage bound­aries about 250 yards in the dis­tance, Boyn­ton said.

“We were able to sup­press the fire and get the casu­al­ties out and into safety,” Boyn­ton said of the Afghan sol­diers caught in the kill zone. Boyn­ton coor­di­nated fire sup­port with coali­tion heli­copters and the casu­al­ties were evac­u­ated, all sur­vived the fire­fight, he said.

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