SF soldiers awarded Silver, Bronze Stars for valor

**Dan** · 05-28-2006, 17:44

Paraglide Article

**Dan** · 05-28-2006, 17:44

Fayetteville Observer Article (Part 1)

**Dan** · 05-28-2006, 17:45

Fayetteville Observer Article (Part 2)

**Dan** · 05-28-2006, 17:45

Fayetteville Observer Article (Part 3)

**Jack Moroney (RIP)** · 05-28-2006, 19:12

Outstanding! Thanks for posting that Dan.

**Eagle5US** · 05-28-2006, 20:27

Right on! About time we had some positive news coverage.
Not surprisingly- them gringos are 7th Group!

Well done fellas.

Eagle

scribbler · 05-29-2006, 18:53

What did you think about the way the paper presented the story? Did you like how I used their own words instead of writing a story around them?
I would love your input.

**Team Sergeant** · 05-29-2006, 19:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by scribbler

What did you think about the way the paper presented the story? Did you like how I used their own words instead of writing a story around them?
I would love your input.

Can you post the stories?
Hard to read the newspaper.....

TS

CoLawman · 05-29-2006, 22:40

Scribbler,
IF, you in fact are responsible for the reporting, Thank You so much for concentrating on drawing attention to the real American Heroes!

scribbler · 05-30-2006, 07:16

Chief Warrant Officer Jason Hope, above left, led several Special Forces soldiers across more than a quarter mile of open ground under intense fire in pursuit of a senior Taliban commander.

Staff Sgt. David Lowe trapped an enemy fighter who killed a member of his A-team, crossed 150 yards of open ground to give a wounded soldier aid and exposed himself to fire in order to kill an enemy fighter.

Each of them received the Army’s Silver Star — the third highest award for bravery — at a medal ceremony Thursday at Meadows Field on Fort Bragg. Lowe was also awarded a Bronze Star with “V” device for valor.

The ceremony also recognized the bravery of another 11 Special Forces soldiers from 1st Battalion of the 7th Special Forces Group.

— Kevin Maurer

scribbler · 05-30-2006, 07:19

David Lowe

We were about a week from leaving country when we got a call that another unit was in trouble. They were in an ongoing fire fight and they couldn’t seem to get everything under control. There was little pockets of enemy all over the area.

In that situation, you go through every nook and cranny and see what you got. See what you find and see what you need to take care of as it comes along.

It took about four hours to get to where we were going. It was early afternoon by the time that we got out there. We had a team plus some. Maybe 15 or 20 Americans and a platoon or two of Afghan forces.

We split up into pretty much four elements. I was on the far left element clearing out that way.

It was mountainous, rocky with little wadis (dry stream beds). Steep inclines, rocks and real dense bushes all over the place. It was a really sunny day and all the sun created shadows from the bushes. The way to find the enemy was when they shot at you.

My buddy Vic (Sgt. 1st Class Victor H. Cervantes), was moving down in the wadi. Me and an Air Force guy were up about 10 or 15 meters up the side of a hill providing overwatch.

We got to a spot where I was moving ahead of Vic to keep trying to cover him. All of a sudden I heard gunfire coming back from where I last saw him.

I saw someone moving up through the bushes. He was ducking in and out of trees and I fired at him and from there. I didn’t see him anymore.

I started to worry about Vic. I started hollering for him.

Vic was dead.

I told my buddy to hang tight. I was going to go up and get this guy. But, we decided to wait for the rest of the team to come down.

We shot some smoke and flares up to where I had last seen the guy and tried to get the choppers in on him. We didn’t have any luck with that. When the rest of the guys got there, I told them that I either shot him and he’s dead or he is gone.

The captain had the infantry guys clear down the hill. It is always better to fight that way than charging blindly up an embankment, which is what I would have been doing if had made that decision. Who knows how that would have turned out?

Shortly after they came down, I heard gunfire. I then saw everyone shooting and saw muzzle flashes. So I started shooting at him. There was a lull in the fire and I thought I heard screaming. I yelled if anyone was hit and there was an infantry guy up on a SAW (machine gun) across the wadi from me.

I hopped up and rushed over to him. It was about 150 meters or so. I got up to the wounded guy and he was hit in the arm, leg and head. I took care of him and we got him evaced.

Then we came back down to Vic’s body and started to (carry him out). It was kind of a sense of pride not to put him on a chopper, but take him out ourselves.

We started hearing fire ahead of us. We went around a corner and didn’t see nothing, so the (Air Force guy) went low and I went high just on the other side of the wadi.

I started peeking over the wadi and saw (the Air Force guy) just on the other side pinned down.

I couldn’t shoot from where I was at, so I hopped up and perched up on the rocks and took care of him. After he was taken care of, we moved the rest of the way down.

scribbler · 05-30-2006, 07:22

In Their Own Words
Jason Hope

We arrived in the morning. We normally like to operate at night for obvious reasons, but the enemy always has a vote on that.

They were pretty much ready for us. We were receiving fire as we were going in and an immense amount of fire when we were exiting the helos.

We were told there would be five to seven guys we would have to contend with. Having known this guy has made statements that he wasn’t going to be taken alive we knew there was going to be a fight.

The camp was in an area surrounded by low ground. We landed outside his camp only about 300 meters away. Between us and his camp is this ridge line.

As we landed, they took up positions on that ridge line. As it turned out, there was probably about 20 fighters. They were up on the ridge line ripping into us as we moved up.

We had already lost the element of surprise. We had to gain it back through aggressive maneuvers.

(Hope and his teammates charged up the ridge, overcoming the fighters.)

Once we crested the ridge line, we determined that we had to flank the enemy’s position. There was about 600 meters between us and where we needed to get.

I decided that we had to get this done because we are getting chewed up. Myself and three of my other teammates maneuvered to that position.

We just flat out ran across the 600 meters of open ground and got shot at pretty good. There wasn’t any cover. It didn’t make sense to me to friggin’ hit the ground. One, I’m old and I am wearing a lot of friggin’ equipment. I might hit the ground and not get back up.

I didn’t have a death wish. I am the oldest, slowest guy on the team. I figure if I can do it those guys will follow.

We were about 150 meters away from the camp now, and still taking an incredible about of fire.

We knew our rounds weren’t having an effect because they were still shooting at us. I got to thinking that this was a little more than just a tent they were hiding behind.

The difference between these and the regular Bedouin tents is that these had a fortified position inside of them. They had bricks and firing ports.

Myself, (Staff Sgt. Charles Maxwell) and another teammate basically cleared the position that we were receiving fire from.

As soon as the bullets stopped flying, we always do a search. One of our searches turned up these two women. They had actually moved his body. They were sitting on his body and one of our guys said, ‘Get up.’

Hey, jackpot, we got him.

Warrior-Mentor · 06-03-2006, 17:02

Thanks for the post (Dan) and the story (Scribbler) and most importantly to the guys for a job well done.

Scribbler: Great to get some good news stories out there. I like the technique you used to let them tell their own story. Made it more personal and carried more impact. Thanks.

POO · 07-19-2006, 08:43

Ya'll don't do it for awards or acolades. However, when they are given it's nice to see the press covering it. My Hat's off to those men. Great job!