Pfc. Christopher Fernandez
United States Army
Pfc. Christopher Fernandez, of Battery A, 1st Battalion, 21st Field Artillery Regiment, was awarded a Silver Star Medal for valor by the 1st Cavalry Division commanding general Aug. 13.
The Silver Star is the Army’s fifth highest medal for valor and the third highest during combat. The medal is rarely given to enlisted Soldiers.
Fernandez was awarded the Silver Star for his actions on the night of May 5, when his unit came under attack. Fernandez, a Tucson, Ariz. native, was on a patrol through the Baghdad’s Saidiyah neighborhood when insurgents ambushed his unit.
An improvised explosive device hit the patrol’s rear vehicle. Immediately following the explosion, the patrol was barraged with small-arms fire. The IED explosion killed two U.S. soldiers, wounded five others and rendered their vehicle inoperable.
In all the chaos, Fernandez saw the stricken vehicle’s M-240B machine gun was unused. Fernandez knew that another weapon would suppress the enemy’s fire long enough to evacuate the wounded and leave the area. He left his vehicle, ran to the disabled humvee, recovered the weapon and its ammunition, and then opened fire on the enemy.
What made all of that spectacular was the recovered weapon’s condition, said Capt. Thomas Pugsley, Battery A’s commander. The handguards covering the machine-gun’s barrel, so the gunner’s hands won’t burn, were blown off in the explosion. That didn’t matter to Fernandez though; he kept firing even though his hands were burning.
Almost 10 minutes later, the wounded were loaded onto Fernandez’s vehicle, and the ambush site was abandoned.
|
WTNH
“After the (bomb) went off, I noticed their Humvee was taking fire, that’s when I started shooting back,” said Fernandez, a quiet, lanky man who wears glasses. Fernandez ran out of ammunition for his M-249 machine gun. He sprinted to the disabled Humvee and grabbed a damaged M-240 heavy machine gun and dashed back to his position to continue firing. The M-240′s protective hand guards had been blown off and Fernandez said he burned his hands in about 10 minutes of sustained shooting. “I knew I had to do something. I could’ve gotten myself killed to do it,” said Fernandez, interviewed at 1st Cavalry headquarters near Baghdad International Airport.
|
Arizona Daily Star
The road from Tucson to Baghdad has been a tough one for teenage soldier Christopher Fernandez and his family.
The Army has declared him a hero. But the honor barely eases the hearts of loved ones praying for his safety.
Fernandez, a 19-year-old newlywed and new dad, received one of the nation’s highest honors for combat bravery Friday when a two-star general pinned a Silver Star on his chest.
The private first class earned the honor for putting himself in danger to save others when his unit was ambushed in Baghdad in May, the Army said Monday.
The Silver Star is the country’s third-highest award for valor on the battlefield.
“I’m so proud of my husband. I love him so much,” said Fernandez’s wife, Maritza Fernandez, also 19, on Monday.
“But there’s part of me that wishes he would run and hide when the shooting starts,” she added, cradling the couple’s 2-month-old son, Nathaniel, who was born while his father was at war.
The couple were married in August of last year and have spent much of the past year apart between basic training and deployment.
“It hasn’t been easy for us,” Maritza Fernandez said. “But I try to be brave because he’s so brave.”
|
Tags: hero, Iraq, Pfc. Christopher Fernandez, silver star
This entry was posted on Friday, October 1st, 2004 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Military, Heroes, War on Terror, Iraq, Military, War on Terror, WOT Heroes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
