Distinguished Service Cross

He served in Iraq twice before. He was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross for his actions as a squad leader here. He didn’t have to come back.

But Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Nein is back, on his third deployment in Iraq, his fourth overseas this decade. The first was in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2001.

Only the Medal of Honor trumps the DSC among awards for valor in battle. Nein was the first Guard member to receive the award and only the fourth service member during the Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The DSC was an upgrade from the Silver Star Medal that Nein was originally awarded for his actions as a squad leader with the Kentucky National Guard’s 617th Military Police Company during a March 20, 2005, ambush.

Nein and the National Guard’s Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester – the first woman awarded the Silver Star for direct combat action against an enemy – led a counterattack that saw 27 insurgents killed, seven captured and no deaths in their unit. Two Soldiers were wounded.

Nein still leads in Iraq, where he’s now serving with the Kentucky National Guard’s 223rd Military Police Company.

Five years of change

“I probably didn’t have to be here this time, but I don’t think that I would have missed it,” Nein said. “I feel honored to be a part of this.”

This time, he is a platoon sergeant providing escorts for the 18th Military Police Brigade’s Iraqi Police Transitional Team.

Nein has seen five years of change firsthand. He first deployed here with the initial liberation force in 2003. He was back in 2005.

“I’ve seen a huge difference from 2005 to where we are now,” he said. “I can remember thinking in 2005, looking back at 2003, how much different it was.

“I can’t believe we’ve come as far as we have as far as getting their economy going. The violence is down greatly. It’s unbelievable how much different it is. They have come in five years in the democracy that they have what took us 232 years to get to.

“That’s what I don’t think people see – the great life that we live in the United States.

People look at that and think that it’s always been that way. It wasn’t. Forty, 50 years ago we were still fighting the civil rights movement. We have fought for 232 years to get to where we’re at. Yet in five years [Iraqis] have gone from a dictatorship to the ability to vote for who they want.”

Essential

Nein said the National Guard has played an essential role in Iraq’s transformation. One example is his own unit’s mission. “We’re helping transform the Iraqi police to be a more relevant force and a more professional force,” he said. “We’re out there every day evaluating their leaders, evaluating their recruits, evaluating their police stations to make sure that they’re up to par so that we can hand this mission over to them and they can take control.”

From Clark County, Ind., Nein enlisted in the National Guard in 1996. “I wanted to give something back to the people that have given me so much,” he said.

He has strong feelings about the Guard. “It’s one of the best assets the United States Army has,” he said. “It’s a relevant and ready force. We have gone in the last five years from a great force to an outstanding force. We can pick up and be anywhere in the world and accomplish a mission just like any other unit in the United States and perform to the equivalent level. I can’t say enough about the Guard.”

Despite Nein’s intense Guard pride, he sees all servicemembers here as a joint team. “I don’t see National Guard,” he said. “I don’t see Reserve Soldiers, and I don’t see active-duty Soldiers, because we’re all doing the same mission and we’re keeping up the great professionalism … meeting every bit of the same standards across the board.”

But Nein said the National Guard is unique because the Citizen-Soldier or -Airman who balances family, a civilian career and the Guard is unique.

Unique

“We’ve got Soldiers that just aren’t Soldiers – this isn’t all they’ve ever done,” Nein said. “We might have guys that have been in the National Guard for 20 years and have three and four deployments and have a lot of world experience, but they also have other careers that they’re able to expand on in the Guard.”

Nein sees the benefit of those civilian-acquired skills in his own unit. “I’ve got guys that are in law enforcement. I’ve got welders. I’ve got college students.”

Nein’s unit includes some stop-loss Soldiers. “They didn’t complain one bit,” he said. “They said, ‘This is my job, and this is what I’m going to go do.’ And that’s the heart of a U.S. Soldier, and that’s the heart of the United States citizen.”

When Nein looks at his own unit, he sees a microcosm of the Guard, a mosaic built from different life experiences and shared Soldier skills that gives the unit an ability to adapt to change.

“I see the best of the best,” he said. “I see the typical U.S. citizen who stands up to come here and leaves – just like with an active duty Soldier – their homeland to come and make a better place in the world without a complaint.”

Before this latest deployment, Nein took a leave of absence from the paper products company where he’s worked two decades to go full time with the Guard as a training NCO.

Continuous improvement

Here on the ground, after-action reviews are a key part of how Nein leads, seeking ways for himself and his Soldiers to improve. “Even if it’s just a standard escort mission that we do a thousand times while we’re here, every day’s going to be different, and every day we’ve got to try and make it better, and that’s how I look at every mission,” he said.

Out on escort missions, Nein thinks like his enemy. “I’m looking for how, if I was a bad guy, how I would kill me, the entire time out there,” he said. “I’m looking for where I would put an improvised explosive device; where I would set up an ambush; how I would do it if I was the bad guy.”

He passes that mentality along to his Soldiers as they scan for threats. “Don’t look at the actual object,” he tells them, referring to IED placement. “Look past it. Look at how you would set it up in the area – and you’ll see it way before you would ever if you were just looking for an inanimate object.”

He hopes other Soldiers will look at the day his unit was ambushed for lessons. “What did we do right?” he said. “Why were we able to survive something that we shouldn’t have been able to survive?

“I didn’t make up any of the tactics that we used. We took everything that the Army taught and that Soldiers before me had used and we developed it and we implemented it from Day 1. Anytime that a technique, tactic and procedure could have been better, we worked on it.

“It’s not what I did that made the day go right. It’s what the people before me did, that taught me and mentored me on battle tactics and TTPs and just doing the right thing each and every day. Because if you do that – the right training, the right leadership and the right equipment – there’s nothing that we can’t accomplish.”

Nein has been married for 19 years. The couple has two children.

“If it wasn’t for a good support channel, as far as my family being able to support me to allow me to go do these things, then I wouldn’t be able to do it,” Nein said. “My ability to do my job and not worry about what’s going on at home is because I have a great family and a great wife.”

March 20, 2005, might have ended differently for Nein and his squad, who were outnumbered five to one. Every day he serves here, Nein still faces risk.

“This is my job,” he said. “This is what I chose to do, and it’s what I’ll continue to strive to do. I love what I do.”

Staff Sgt. Jon Soucy of the National Guard Bureau contributed.

DVIDS
By Army Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill
National Guard Bureau

On March 25, 2005 I first posted the story of this truly heroic group of Kentucky National Guardmen and Guardswomen. At first it was just a press release from Central Command. As I follwed the story, the people in the unit emerged as individuals, and as heroes.

At approximately noon on March 20, 26 terrorists were killed, seven wounded, and one captured when they attacked a coalition force convoy on the outskirts of Baghdad in the Salman Pak area. Seven soldiers were injured during the attack. A U.S. military convoy and its security element from the 617 Military Police Company was patrolling when the convoy was ambushed by approximately 40 – 50 terrorists with rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire. The convoy became disabled and the 617 MP’s maneuvered to flank the terrorists.

Pretty dry, huh?

AP reported

The Kentucky National Guardsmen were outnumbered and under heavy gunfire when they counterattacked Iraqi insurgents who ambushed a coalition convoy southeast of Baghdad. A 30-minute firefight ensued on a Sunday morning, pitting 10 guardsmen against dozens of insurgents. When the shooting ended, 26 guerrillas lay dead and another was mortally wounded, while six others were wounded and another was captured unharmed. The guardsmen didn’t go unscathed. Three members of the military police unit were wounded and later transported for medical treatment in Germany, where they are recovering.

These ten men and women have probably been awarded more medals for heroism than any other similar group in this war.

SSG Timothy Nein: Silver Star upgraded to Distinguished Service Cross
Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester: Silver Star
Sgt. Jason I. Mike: Purple Heart, Army Commendation Medal with V device upgraded to Silver Star
Sgt. Dustin Morris: Army Commendation Medal with V device
Spc. Casey Cooper: Bronze Star with V device, Purple Heart
Sgt. Joseph Riviera: Purple Heart, Army Commendation Medal with V device
Pfc. Bryan Mack: Purple Heart, Army Commendation Medal with V device
Spc. Willam Haynes II: Bronze Star with V device, Purple Heart
Spc. Ashley Pullen: Bronze Star with V device
Spc. Jesse Ordunez: Army Commendation Medal with V device

On this Veteran’s Day 2007, think about these men and women who fought, and shed their blood, for us.

Raven 42

Silver Star. More of the Raven 42 bunch.

DoD

Staff Sgt. Nein and then-Spc. Mike were part of a routine convoy escort on March 20, 2005, when a group of more than 30 insurgents ambushed the convoy. Enemy fighters had taken up positions in irrigation ditches along the road and in an orchard nearby. Insurgents disabled the lead vehicle, bringing the convoy to a halt in the middle of the kill zone. As insurgents began streaming toward the stopped convoy, Nein and his team leader, Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, jumped out of their vehicles and took cover near the enemy’s trench. Mike’s vehicle, which was toward the end of the convoy line, took up a position at the other end of the trench, trapping the enemy fighters. As Nein and Hester began clearing the trench of insurgents from one side, another wave of fighters attacked from the other side, wounding three of the four soldiers around Mike. Mike, a medic, moved the injured soldiers out of direct enemy fire, picked up two weapons, and began defending from the attacks on both sides. After Mike eliminated the threat, he began treating the wounded.

Meanwhile, as soldiers provided cover fire, Nein and Hester moved through two trenches filled with enemy fighters. They cleared both trenches, killing 27 insurgents, wounding six, and capturing one. The group also recovered several items of significance, including a video camera that the insurgents were using to film the ambush and another video tape in the pocket of a dead enemy fighter that showed a beheading.

For their actions, Nein and Mike received the Silver Star Medal in June 2005.

Click on the Raven 42 category link at the top for all the stories. Nein was eventually awarded a DSC.

Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star

I’ve set up a new category for the heroes from this battle. Click on Raven 42 to read all my posts on these American heroes.

By Staff Sgt. Jon Soucy, USA, American Forces Press Service

LEXINGTON, Ky., Feb. 21, 2007 – A Kentucky Army National Guardsman has become the first Guard soldier — and only the fifth servicemember overall — to receive the Distinguished Service Cross.

The Distinguished Service Cross is second only to the Medal of Honor among awards for valor in battle. Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein received the medal from Army Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, at the National Guard Association of Kentucky’s annual conference here Feb. 17.

Nein originally received the Silver Star Medal for his actions as a squad leader with the 617th Military Police Company during an ambush in Iraq on March 20, 2005, but the award was upgraded, a process culminating with the presentation.

Nein’s squad was escorting a convoy of supply trucks near the town of Salman Pak, south of Baghdad, when the convoy came under heavy fire. Without hesitation, Nein and his squad put themselves and their vehicles between the insurgents and the convoy. Nein and Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, the first woman awarded the Silver Star for direct combat action against an enemy, dismounted from their armored Humvees and led the counterattack against the ambush, killing 27 insurgents and capturing seven more. Two soldiers in the squad were wounded during the engagement, which lasted roughly 30 minutes.

Nein was humble about receiving the award.

“I’ve read the stories of so many other (recipients of the medal) during my life, from World War II and Vietnam and of all the things they’ve done. To be put in the same light as them is quite an honor. It’s actually pretty humbling to know that people feel the way they do about me for doing things that I feel were just part of our job,” Nein said after the ceremony.

Nein said that day in Iraq was all about doing his job.

“Once we had gotten into the position to assault the fighting positions of the bad guys, it never occurred to me we were doing anything other than our jobs,” said Nein. “We had taken a couple of wounded, and at that point I knew we needed to start going into the trenches and canal systems to try and eliminate some of those guys.”

Nein and his 10-member squad had no idea of the numbers they were facing during the assault.

“I never knew there were about 50,” said Nein. “Initially, when we made the turn to flank the anti-Iraqi forces, I counted seven cars, all with four doors open, and I did the math real quick in my head, and I was like, ‘That’s 28 against 10.’ That’s 2.8 to 1 odds. That’s not very good. Little did I know it was 5 to 1 odds, which is even worse.”

Those odds worked against Nein and his soldiers for a brief period of time.

“One time after assaulting one position, a guy was shooting down from a berm that was about 10 feet above us,” Nein said, noting that he was concerned his squad would be overrun. He said he thought about destroying the squad’s equipment to prevent it from falling into enemy hands, but that he instead decided the best course was to take the fight to the enemy.

In the end, the squad eliminated more than half of the force it faced and captured seven attackers. Even though nearly two years has passed since that battle, Nein said he still thinks about that day and what happened.

“Even the guys from my squad will tell you, there is not a day that goes by that it doesn’t affect us in one way or another, good or bad,” said Nein. “I’ve probably run a hundred different scenarios in my head of how we could have run it better, but I never can come up with anything.”

That is to be expected, he said.

“With the right equipment, the right training and the right leadership, there’s nothing we can’t get done,” Nein said.

By Staff Sgt. Jon Soucy, USA, American Forces Press Service

FORT LEE, Va., Feb. 5, 2007 – The first woman to win the Silver Star Medal for direct actions against an enemy force turned out for the opening of the Global War on Terrorism exhibit Feb. 3 at the U.S. Army Women’s Museum here.

The exhibit showcases contributions women have made during the war.

Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester made history when she earned the medal during actions March 20, 2005, while reacting to an ambush by insurgents near Baghdad. She is also the first woman to earn the award since World War II.

Hester and most of the other members of her squad from the Kentucky Army National Guard’s 617th Military Police Company, to which she was assigned when the action occurred, were present for the exhibit’s opening. It was the first time they had all been together in more than a year, Hester said.

The exhibit’s centerpiece is a life-size diorama of the squad’s actions.

Others in the unit also received the Silver Star, including Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein, the squad leader, whose award has recently been upgraded to a Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest award for valor. The Distinguished Service Cross ranks is second only to the Medal of Honor.

While the exhibit focuses on the actions of Hester and Nein, both soldiers emphasized that the entire squad worked together to succeed.

“It wasn’t one person’s actions that day,” Hester said. “It was us as a team. You know, I wouldn’t be standing here today without these guys having had my back that day.”

The squad, call sign Raven 42, was escorting a convoy near the town of Salman Pak, south of Baghdad, when the convoy came under heavy fire. Acting without hesitation, the Guard soldiers drove their vehicles between the insurgents and the convoy. Hester and Nein dismounted from their armored Humvees and led the counterattack against the ambush. Twenty-seven insurgents were killed, and seven were captured.

Two soldiers in the squad were wounded during the engagement, which lasted roughly 30 minutes. But it could have been far worse, because the insurgents had getaway vehicles pre-positioned with open doors and trunks. They also had handcuffs, perhaps indicating they intended to take prisoners.

While Hester was quick to downplay her role during the counterattack, others feel she did much more than simply her job.

“It’s amazing,” said Pat Sigle, director of the Army Women’s Foundation, which oversaw the funding for the exhibit. “I hope she understands, and I think in time she will, just how amazing that team was, how they all came out alive, how they pulled together and did what they were supposed to do.”

The fact that Hester is a woman who has served in a combat zone, and in direct combat action, has been highlighted by many people. But it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary to her. It was just another aspect of life in the squad, she said.

“I believe everybody in my squad changed a lot of minds,” she said. “Not just me. We’re a blend of several different cultures, and being a woman, to me, is just one of those cultures. It makes no difference. If you can do the job, you can do the job. Some people can, and some people can’t.”

Others in the squad agreed.

“A hundred years ago, I guarantee our forefathers would never have thought a squad that was as successful as we were that day could come from so many different backgrounds and look so different physically,” said Sgt. Jason L. Mike, an African-American medic assigned to the unit who also was awarded the Silver Star for his actions that day.

While many in attendance expressed awe at the actions of Hester, Nein, Mike and the others in Raven 42, the squad members stood in awe of the exhibit that depicts their actions.

“They did an outstanding job,” said Hester. “It’s amazing what they did. I believe it captures the actions of March 20, 2005, very well.”

But, for Hester, it still comes down to just the squad’s soldiers doing their jobs that day.

“There’s a lot of soldiers that are doing this job right now,” she said. “Right this minute, right now, they’re doing now what we were doing then, and they’re not getting the credit they deserve. Look at the big picture. We did great one day, but there are people doing that every day. Don’t lose sight of that.”