1st Lt. Matthew Dusablon
Bronze Star with V device
Lancaster Online
The circumstances that led to Dusablon becoming a hero happened on July 22, 2006.
Attached to Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 67th Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division, Dusablon’s unit was heading toward the city of Musayyib. There they were notified that Iraqi police were fighting with insurgents.
“We got called out because the militia was in conflict with Iraqi police,” Dusablon said.
Dusablon led a platoon of soldiers in two Bradley Fighting Vehicles and a tank down a narrow street into the city to “start clearing out the militia.”
They had advanced just a short distance when his Bradley was disabled by a rocket-propelled grenade. They then came under weapons fire from insurgents on rooftops.
While the driver tried to get the vehicle restarted, Dusablon and his gunner threw open their steel hatches, got out of the vehicle and returned fire.
“We each went through a couple of (ammunition) magazines,” Dusablon said.
Amid the cacophony of gunfire, they realized the Bradley had been restarted, so they jumped back inside, and the column proceeded into the city.
All the while, automatic weapons fire and more rocket-propelled grenades rattled and shook the vehicles.
“It was a free-for-all,” Dusablon said. “The insurgents were on the rooftops and in the alleyways, and they started hitting us left and right.”
The second Bradley was then hit by two rocket-propelled grenades and disabled. A soldier was seriously wounded in the face by shrapnel. Again exposing himself to enemy fire, Dusablon and his gunner engaged insurgents who “were within a few meters” of the American column and drove them back.
During this fight, Dusablon also was able to help the stricken vehicle’s crew, get his platoon to safety and arrange for evacuation of the wounded soldier.
Dusablon was unscathed during the three-hour fight, although his gunner and another man sustained minor injuries. Thirty-three insurgents had been killed.
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