{"id":69780,"date":"2017-01-12T09:34:15","date_gmt":"2017-01-12T14:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=69780"},"modified":"2017-01-12T09:34:15","modified_gmt":"2017-01-12T14:34:15","slug":"navy-secretary-to-upgrade-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=69780","title":{"rendered":"Navy Secretary to upgrade awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Military.com<\/a> reports that four members of the Navy Department are having their valor awards upgraded by the outgoing Navy Secretary, Ray Mabus. Sgt. Michael Mendoza, will receive the Navy Cross, Sgt. Nicholas Brandau, Master Sgt. Steven Davis, Lance Cpl. Edward Huth, and Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Atkinson will receive Silver Stars;<\/p>\n

Mendoza, who previously received the Silver Star for bravery in Anbar province, Iraq, in April 2004 as a member of 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, is credited with leading five Marines in a heroic charge across an open field after his vehicle was disabled by a rocket-propelled grenade.<\/p>\n

According to his citation, obtained by Military.com, the “vigor” of the assault resulted in the deaths of 10 enemy fighters and forced the retreat of many others. When his commander was wounded, Mendoza took out the assailant and laid down cover fire until an armored vehicle could arrive to evacuate the officer.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Atkinson, a Navy corpsman serving with the Marines’ 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion in Iraq in April 2003, exposed himself to enemy fire on four different occasions to offer lifesaving care for two wounded Marines, according to his citation. At one point, he dismounted from his vehicle and braved hostile fire to pull his wounded first sergeant from his vehicle and render aid.<\/p>\n

Huth, who was recognized for bravery in 2010 while serving as a machine gunner with 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines, in Afghanistan, continued to lay down suppressive fire on the enemy with his M240B medium machine gun even after receiving a gunshot wound. After being shot in the right arm, he moved the gun to his left arm and kept shooting, according to his citation.<\/p>\n

Brandau, who served in Afghanistan with 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, also braved enemy fire, engaging enemy fighters by throwing grenades between bursts of machine-gun fire, and later directed suppressive fire to allow for a fallen Marine to be evacuated.<\/p>\n

In Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004, Davis distinguished himself while providing security for armored ambulances evacuating casualties from the heart of the war-torn city, according to his citation. When another Marine was wounded by gunfire, Davis departed the safety of the vehicle and braved “a hail of enemy fire” to reach him. When Davis himself was wounded by gunfire, he used his own body to shield the other wounded Marine.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Military.com reports that four members of the Navy Department are having their valor awards upgraded by … Navy Secretary to upgrade awards<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}