Wednesday Hero ~ Petty Officer 2nd Class Marc A Lee

Aviation Ordnanceman 2nd Class (SEAL) Marc A. Lee
28 years old from Hood River, Oregon
Navy SEAL
August 2, 2006


"Marc was amazing. He was my best friend, my love," his widow, Maya, said.

Petty Officer Marc A. Lee joined the Navy in 2001 and became an AO after completing Naval Air Technical Training. Later that year he attempted to complete the grueling BUD/S program but caught pneumonia and had to drop out. He tried again in 2004 and completed the course. He joined a SEAL team and deployed in 2005

On August 2, 2006, Marc A. Lee became the first SEAL to be killed in combat in Iraq when he was fatally wounded in a firefight in Ramadi, Iraq. The following is from the award citation for the Silver Star he received postumously:

"During the operation, one element member was wounded by enemy fire. The element completed the casualty evacuation, regrouped and returned onto the battlefield to continue the fight. Petty Officer Lee and his SEAL element maneuvered to assault an unidentified enemy position. He, his teammates, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Abrams tanks engaged enemy positions with suppressive fire from an adjacent building to the north.

"To protect the lives of his teammates, he fearlessly exposed himself to direct enemy fire by engaging the enemy with his machine gun and was mortally wounded in the engagement. His brave actions in the line of fire saved the lives of many of his teammates"

"It was so like Marc to give up his life to save his friends," his mother, Debbie Lee, told the Hood River News. "I am so proud of him. He is my hero."

Petty Officer Lee was posthumously awarded a Silver Star and Bronze Star with combat "V" for his actions in Iraq during his team’s combat tour and the Purple Heart medal.

Source: MilitaryCity.com

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives
so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday.
For that, I am proud to call them Hero.

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Editors Note:
PO2 Marc A Lee was from my state of Oregon. His loss affected all of us very deeply. My previous pieces on Marc are here:

Farewell, Marc Lee - http://gazingattheflag.blogspot.com/2006/08/farewell-mark-lee.html

Memorial for Marc Lee - http://gazingattheflag.blogspot.com/2006/08/memorial-for-navy-seal-mark-lee.html

A piece on his service and the protesters who didn't get to spoil it is here and the video is very moving - http://www.salem-news.com/articles/august272006/hatemongers_82706.php

And, finally, his Mom, Debbie Lee, who has been a public face and constant advocate for our troops - http://gazingattheflag.blogspot.com/2008/02/gold-star-mom-standing-up-for-troops.html

Wednesday Hero ~ Gunnery SGT Nick Popaditch

Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch


In 2003, Sgt. Popaditch, along with 1st Tank Battalion, rolled into Baghdad from Kuwait at the start of the Iraq War. They had just taken the city and the tank that Sgt. Popaditch was in had rolled up to a 40-ft statue of Saddam. I think we all remember that statue. Popaditch was given a cigar by a fellow Marine and as he smoked it an AP photographer snapped a picture of him.

Fast forward to April 7, 2004. Sgt. Popaditch's wife was vacationing with their son when she received a phone call informing her that her husband had been injured in an attack. The turret of his tank, that he was situated in, had taken two direct hits from RPG's. He fell through the hatch to the floor of the tank. As he struggled to his feet, he began to shout orders to his men but go no response. He then realized that the attack had caused him to go deaf in both ears. But that was only temporary. He then reached up and felt that his head was wet and knew it wasn't good.

In the aftermath of the attack, Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch had lost his right eye. And because of that he now proudly wears a prosthetic eye with the Marine Corps. logo embossed on it. On November 10, 2005 Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch was awarded the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest award for heroism in combat. He also has a book out titled Once A Marine.

The Gunny has a website here: http://cigarmarine.com/

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives
so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday.
For that, I am proud to call them Hero.

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Editor's Note - I was planning to write a Post on the Gunny when he became the topic of Wednesday Hero, so I have added information to this post.

Face of Freedom ~ LCpl Ben Gonzalez

Lance Corporal Ben Gonzalez

Lance Cpl. Benjamin Gonzalez said he wants to start wearing shorts in public this summer, something he won’t do until he’s tattooed.

So what does he want to write on his leg?

“Freedom isn’t free.”

Perhaps even a picture of the Silver Star he was awarded March 25 during a ceremony in his hometown of El Paso, Texas.

“I don’t like to show off so much, but that’s something I would like people to see,” Gonzalez said.

This way, he said, he won’t have to explain his disfigured, scarred legs to anyone or worry about being mistaken for the victim of a simple motorcycle wreck when the truth is so much more extraordinary.

Gonzalez and the rest of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, had been moving through Fallujah, Iraq, the night before taking up a position on a bridge at the northern edge of the city the morning of June 18, 2004.

From the position he shared with three other Marines along the road, Gonzalez kept watch over pedestrians until around 9:30 a.m.

“I got off post and I was actually going to go to rest and check on all my gear, and that’s pretty much when it happened,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez remembers the sound of the insurgent releasing the spoon of the old, pineapple-style grenade and the “clink” the grenade made when it hit the ground in his fighting hole.

“Unhesitatingly and with total disregard for his own personal safety, Lance Corporal Gonzalez threw himself on his fellow Marine, shielding him from the blast,” according to his award citation. But that’s not exactly how Gonzalez describes it.

Gonzalez said he was actually about to jump away from the grenade when he saw his fire team leader “sitting there without a clue.” He said he didn’t exactly “throw himself” on his team leader.

“I can’t really remember much of those details, but I guess I hugged him,” Gonzalez said.

When the grenade detonated, the team leader was unharmed, but Gonzalez, who absorbed the blast, was riddled with shrapnel. “I got burned. It broke both of my legs and broke and fractured other parts. It messed up my nerves really bad. I have permanent trauma. I can’t feel my feet or move my ankles. I have shrapnel in my stomach, too,” Gonzalez said.

“This must have been the crappiest grenade ever made because we were all really close. The detonation was one to two feet away from my legs. If it was one of ours, it would have taken us all out.”

Gonzalez was still conscious after the blast. A corpsman gave him general anesthetic, and he was medically evacuated.

“I was told I had gone through Germany for a day and a half, but I woke up in Bethesda and thought I was still in Iraq,” said Gonzalez, referring to the National Naval Medical Center north of Washington, D.C.

Gonzalez, who is on temporary retirement and can rejoin the Corps after he heals, has not regained full mobility or feeling in his feet and legs.

But he was able to stand in formation as his Silver Star was pinned to his suit jacket by Capt. William Zirkle, who, as a first lieutenant, was Gonzalez’s commanding officer at the time of the attack.

April 10, 2006
Marine caught in grenade blast gets Silver Star
By John Hoellwarth
Times staff writer
As posted on the Vets for Freedom site

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For more about LCpl Ben Gonzalez:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/homeofthebrave/20061110-9999-val-gonzalez.html

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=36933&archive=true

History is Our Stories ~ Army Nurse Linnie Leckrone

World War I Army nurse Linnie Leckrone stands with her brothers, who also served in the war. Left to right: Orris, Dwight, Linnie and Lyle Leckrone. Linnie Leckrone, was one of the first females authorized to wear the Silver Star. Courtesy photo

Army Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, acting Army surgeon general and chief of the Army Nurse Corps, presents the Silver Star to Mary Jane Bolles Reed, who accepts it on behalf of her deceased mother, World War I Army nurse Linnie Leckrone, July 31, 2007.

Photo by Fred W. Baker III

Mary Jane Bolles Reed talks with Army Capt. Rachel Park, the assistant head nurse for the surgical intensive care unit at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, after accepting the Silver Star July 31, 2007, on behalf of her late mother, Linnie Leckrone, an Army nurse who was one of the first females authorized to wear the Silver Star.

Photo by Fred W. Baker III

By Fred W. Baker III
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, DC – While Army nurse Linnie Leckrone was patching up wounded soldiers in France on the front lines of World War I, she most likely wasn’t thinking that her actions one day would merit the military’s third-highest award for valor in the face of the enemy.

Leckrone probably didn’t even consider the history she was making on July 29, 1918, as enemy artillery pounded the location of her field hospital, and she and the small staff of the “gas and shock team” did their best to care for the barrage of incoming wounded.

The Army nurse who volunteered for duty on the front lines that day became one of the first three women in the military authorized to wear the Silver Star. Ironically, she never got to wear the medal, and never even knew she had earned it.

But that would have been fine by Leckrone, her daughter said yesterday at an Army ceremony at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial in Arlington. The Silver Star was awarded posthumously to Leckrone, and presented to her daughter, Mary Jane Bolles Reed.

“If she were here, she would say, “I don’t need a medal. I just did what I had to do,” said her daughter. “And, of course, that’s true. But what she had to do required great courage and was pretty exceptional.”

Leckrone was one of the more than 10,000 women who served in the Army Nurse Corps in France during World War I. Nurses then did not wear rank and were referred to as “miss” or “nurse.” Nurses were not supposed to serve in combat, but as forward surgery became more critical during the war, some nurses were moved to the front lines to work in field hospitals.

According to her daughter, Leckrone’s thoughts during the war were appropriately placed -- on the troops.

The image of one soldier must have stood out. “He was just a boy. No more than 16 years old. He called me Mom. And he was so sick, he died before morning,” Leckrone recalled to her daughter many years later.

Leckrone was cited for the Citation Star, which predated the Silver Star, for serving on the front lines that July in France and caring for wounded despite an enemy artillery bombardment, said Sanders Marble, a historian with the Army’s Office of Medical History, working for the Army Surgeon General.

A colleague of Marble’s found the three Army nurses cited for the award while searching lists for Army dentists. He came across the names and titles and realized their historical significance, Marble said.

Previously, four World War II Army nurses were considered the first female Silver Star recipients, he said, for gallantry in action in Italy in 1944. But, in 1932, then Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley authorized recipients of the Citation Star to exchange their medals for the new Silver Star. About 10,000 servicemembers have requested to have their Citation Stars exchanged for Silver Stars.

Marble’s office researched the event. They had only two sentences to go by, including a name, location and description of the citation. They expanded on the citation and submitted for the exchange.

Marble said one recipient died and has no living next of kin. The other recipient’s family was not able to attend yesterday’s ceremony.

The historian said Leckrone’s family was surprised when they got the call from his office.

Leckrone was cited for the Citation Star, but it was never presented. She was discharged from the Army before it could be awarded.

“As far as we know, she never knew about it,” Marble said. “The daughter, Mrs. Reed, was stunned when we called her and said, ‘Your mother was in the Army, did you know about this?’”

Leckrone returned to the United States after serving 14 months overseas. When she returned there was no parade or welcome-home ceremony, her daughter said. “They got back to New York City in uniform. People looked at them like foreigners. There was no big welcome home celebration,” Reed said.

Her mother took a job as a nurse in Chicago, but then later followed her friend and fellow combat nurse – who also received the same citation – to Colorado. She got a job in the southern part of the state, in a small rural town, doing what she loved, her daughter said: helping people.

Routinely, Leckrone would walk two to three miles to small farm houses to take care of the sick, Reed said. The local people were grateful for the care. “She said ‘They just worshipped me,’” Reed said.

Leckrone later moved to Boulder, Colo., and worked as a nurse for the county. It was there she met her husband, married and quit nursing, at least outside of her family. “Four rambunctious farm kids came up with a multitude of illnesses and injuries that taxed her nursing skills,” Reed said of herself and her siblings.

While preparing to receive the award for her mother, Reed said she started digging back through years of family history and prepared a long list of her mother’s accomplishments. But afterward, Reed said, she realized the list was not important to understanding the impact that Leckrone left in the lives of those she served.

“Looking at it, I realized you don’t need to know what she did, but it was how she did those things. It was always with compassion, and gumption and care – with the heart of a true nurse,” Reed said. “Linnie Leckrone was a nurse all her life. She was unflappable.”

From Defenselink

Wednesday Hero ~ CPL Clinton Warrick

Cpl. Clinton Warrick (Soldier On The Left)
Medic with the 2nd Platoon, 300th Military Police Company


Even after having been thrown several meters, knocked unconscious, set aflame and buried under rubble all as a result of a suicide-vehicle-borne IED, a Fort Riley medic braved small-arms fire to save the lives of fellow Soldiers and Iraqi policemen last year.

Cpl. Clinton Warrick received the Army's third highest award for valor during a June 18, 2007 ceremony at Riverside Park for his actions during a Sept. 18, 2006, insurgent attack at the Al Huryia Iraqi Police Station.

Maj. Gen. Carter Ham (soldier on the right), commanding general of the 1st Infantry Division and Fort Riley, present Cpl. Warrick the Silver Star and other awards before his family and friends, and his former 300th MP Co. platoon leader, company commander and first sergeant.

"This is one of Fort Riley's great Soldiers - one of our real, no-kidding heroes," Maj. Gen. Ham said at the ceremony. "It is right and proper that we come here to present you this award for valor. It is heroes like this who make our Army the best in the world and our nation so strong."

You can read the rest of Cpl. Warrick's story here.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll.

Navy Cross ~ Axelson, Dietz, The One

Navy Cross Awards

PO2 Matthew G Axelson

PO2 Danny P Dietz

"The One"

"Extraordinary heroism has earned them the Navy Cross and a place of honor in the hearts of their countrymen."

-Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter

Navy Secretary Donald C Winter presents the Navy Cross to Cindy Axelson, widow of Petty Officer 2nd class Matthew G Axelson

Navy Secretary Donald C Winter prsents the Navy Cross to Patsy Dietz, widow of Petty Officer 2nd Class Danny P Dietz

Two SEALs Receive Posthumous Navy Cross Awards

By Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 2006 – Special operations forces personnel, so accustomed to operating in the shadows, stepped sadly into the light tonight as the Navy presented the widows of two SEALs killed in Afghanistan with the nation’s second-highest military award for valor.

Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter presented the Navy Cross to Cindy Axelson, widow of Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew G. Axelson, and to Patsy Dietz, widow of Petty Officer 2nd Class Danny P. Dietz.

The ceremony was fittingly held here at the U.S. Navy Memorial. "These were our men," said Rear Adm. Joseph Maguire, commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command, at the start of the ceremony.

Axelson and Dietz were part of a four-man team inserted behind enemy lines June 27, 2005, east of Asadabad, Afghanistan, to find and kill or capture a key local militia leader.

Anti-coalition forces spotted them the following day and promptly alerted the militia forces. The SEALs fought valiantly against "the numerically superior and positionally advantaged enemy force," according to the citation that accompanied the awards. Three of the four SEALs were wounded and forced into a ravine, where they radioed for help. An MH-47 Chinook helicopter with eight more SEALs and eight Army troops aboard went to the rescue, but was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade and crashed, killing all aboard.

Dietz and Axelson, though wounded, provided cover for their partner to escape. The teammate, whose name is being withheld to protect his identity, evaded the enemy for days before being rescued. He, too, received the Navy Cross at an earlier ceremony.

More than 300 family members, teammates and friends attended today’s evening ceremony. A large contingent of sailors from SEAL Team 2 in Norfolk also journeyed to Washington to pay their respects.

SEAL teammates spoke about their friends during the ceremony. "These men are heroes, not because of the way they died, but how they lived as well," said Navy Lt. Brad Geary, who served with Dietz. He spoke of Dietz’s quiet professionalism and sense of responsibility to the team, the Navy and his country.

Petty Officer 1st Class Dave Albritton spoke about Axelson, his SEAL teammate, much the same way. Albritton, who went through SEAL training with Axelson, said it became obvious early in the training that Axelson was a born leader -- a man all his classmates looked up to.

Winter said the two men "embodied the values of the Navy’s elite SEAL community: courage, daring, ability and esprit de corps."

He said their combat service to the country deserves "special recognition and a special place in the heart of every American."

The nature of special operations missions means that the servicemembers who carry them out do not receive the public recognition for their exploits, Winter said. He called today’s ceremony a rare opportunity for the American people to learn of the heroism and commitment of the special warriors, and the debt Americans owe them.

"In this war, special forces have been used in new ways and unprecedented numbers," Winter said. "They are precision weapons that are defeating a ruthless enemy."

Winter said the two SEALs honored today served on the frontlines of freedom in operations around the world. "Their insertion into an enemy-held area, surrounded by risk and danger, is typical of the kinds of missions that are routinely assigned to SEALs," he said.

Even after being wounded, both men "continued to fight the enemy with undiminished zeal, covering the extraction of the rest of their team while they stayed and fought," Winters said. "Putting the safety of their teammates ahead of their own, they displayed extraordinary heroism in combat."

Winters uttered two words -- "extraordinary heroism" -- he said "perfectly capture their last selfless acts on this earth."

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From www.BlackFive.net:

Having been compromised during their recon, Axelson, Dietz, Lt. Michael Murphy, and the One were engaged by a numerically superior force of taliban from the mountainside above. After calling for a Quick Reaction Force to aid them in their extraction, the SR team fought the enemy for at least an hour. Upon the arrival of the QRF, one of the MH-47 helos was struck by an RPG and crashed, killing eight SEALs and eight Army Nightstalkers. The SR team fought on and Axelson, Dietz, and Murphy all gave their lives with only one survivor-who was also awarded the Navy Cross-escaping. The One evaded the enemy for another day or more having suffered numerous wounds and was taken in by some nearby friendly villagers. After watching taliban barter for his life on several occasions, the villagers helped to smuggle the One out of the village where he linked up with an Army Ranger patrol at which point he took the Ranger radio and called in a series of devastating airstrikes on taliban positions which had engaged them.

www.blackfive.net/main/2006/09/axelson_and_die.html

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If you wish to read more about these four men, PO2 Matthew Axelson, PO2 Danny Dietz, Lt Michael Murphy and the One, please scroll down.

Brilliant reporting was done at Flopping Aces - be sure to follow all of the updates.

http://www.floppingaces.net/2005/07/10/navy-seal-heros/

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To read all of A Hero to Remember Tributes, click here.

Silver Star ~ Lt Michael P Murphy

Silver Star

Lt Michael P Murphy

KIA June 28, 2005

Asadabad, Afghanistan

Lt Michael Murphy, Navy SEAL, died in combat operations in Asadabad, Afghanistan on June 28, 2005. Murphy was part of a four-man team inserted behind enemy lines June 27, 2005. Anti-coalition forces spotted them the following day and alerted the militia forces. The SEALs fought valiantly. Three of the four were wounded and radioed for help. An MH-47 Chinook helicopter with eight mre SEALs and eight Army troops went to the rescue, but was hit with a rocket propelled grenade, crashed, killing all aboard.

It is believed that his actions are under review for additional honors.