WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday offered the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest navy award for valor in fight, to a few troopers who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Two have been acknowledged posthumously.
Watch the ceremony within the participant above.
“Our hearts are overflowing with gratitude at this time as we honor the unparalleled braveness, the dedication to obligation, and the indispensable, indeniable gallantry,” Biden stated at a White Home ceremony.
These honored have been:
- Grasp Sgt. Earl Plumlee, a Particular Forces soldier who fought off Taliban insurgents after an assault in Afghanistan in 2013.
- Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Celiz, 32, an Military Ranger who died after stepping between Taliban fighters and a U.S. helicopter evacuating wounded in 2018 in Afghanistan.
- Sgt. 1st Class Alwyn Cashe, 35, who died on account of burns he suffered whereas rescuing fellow troopers from a burning car in Iraq in 2005.
Kate Celiz and Tamara Cashe accepted the medals of behalf of their households.
“As honored as you’re, it’s gotta be robust to be right here at this time,” Biden informed Cashe’s household.
Cashe is the primary Black service member to obtain the Medal of Honor for navy actions since Vietnam, in keeping with the White Home.
He was on patrol in Iraq in October 2005 when the Bradley Preventing Automobile he was commanding was attacked with small arms fireplace and a roadside bomb. Cashe repeatedly returned to the burning car and pulled six troopers from the wreckage. Regardless of his burns, Cashe refused to board the medical evacuation helicopter till the opposite troopers have been evacuated first.
Cashe, who grew up in Oviedo, Florida, died the burn at a Texas hospital the next month. Three of the troopers he pulled from the flaming car additionally died.
Celiz was main an operation to clear an space of enemy forces in Afghanistan in 2018 when his crew got here beneath assault. He used his physique to defend his unit from enemy fireplace as a casualty was loaded on to a medical evacuation helicopter. Celiz stayed behind to cowl the plane.
Because the helicopter lifted off, Celiz positioned himself to defend the cockpit. He was hit by enemy fireplace. Regardless of his accidents, he motioned to the plane to depart slightly than stay to load him on the danger of additional casualties.
Celiz was a South Carolina native and had enlisted within the Military in 2006.
Plumlee was serving at a base in Afghanistan when it got here beneath assault, with insurgents blowing a 60-foot breach within the perimeter wall.
Ten insurgents carrying Afghan Nationwide Military uniforms and suicide vests poured by. Plumlee and 5 different troopers drove towards the explosion to go off the assault.
Armed with only a pistol, Plumlee killed two insurgents and engaged a number of others at shut vary, regardless of heavy enemy fireplace and his personal accidents. At one level, Plumlee ran to a wounded soldier, carried him to security and rendered first assist.
Plumlee is presently serving with the first Particular Forces Group at Fort Lewis, Washington.
Related Press author Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
