{"id":76969,"date":"2018-01-06T08:44:58","date_gmt":"2018-01-06T13:44:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=76969"},"modified":"2018-01-06T08:44:58","modified_gmt":"2018-01-06T13:44:58","slug":"capt-charlotte-a-raabe-and-staff-sgt-gary-p-bjerke-earn-dfcs-for-supporting-ground-troops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=76969","title":{"rendered":"Capt. Charlotte A. Raabe and Staff Sgt. Gary P. Bjerke earn DFCs for supporting ground troops"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Stars & Stripes<\/a> reports that Air Force Captain Charlotte A. Raabe and Staff Sergeant Gary P. Bjerke of the 9th Special Operations Squadron were awarded Distinguished Flying Crosses for their actions on January 5, 2016 aboard their MC-130J special operations aircraft over an Afghanistan firefight.<\/p>\n

Their award citations said enemy fire hit the aircraft multiple times as it successfully dropped the ammunition to a Special Forces team at the base, enabling a successful counterattack.<\/p>\n

Bjerke’s identification of ground threats “prevented further successful emergency engagement with the aircraft,” while Raabe’s “decisive actions and expeditious recalculation of the combat airdrop” was key to the mission’s success, the citations said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWhen the crew was told they had to put their bundles within 50 meters of the compound walls, or risk losing it to the enemy, they didn\u2019t hesitate,\u201d [Brig. Gen. William Holt II] said. \u201cAnd they didn\u2019t hesitate because there were friendly forces on the ground who were under fire from 360 degrees around the compound. They had already taken two casualties and were in danger of being overrun.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stars & Stripes reports that Air Force Captain Charlotte A. Raabe and Staff Sergeant Gary P. … Capt. Charlotte A. Raabe and Staff Sgt. Gary P. Bjerke earn DFCs for supporting ground troops<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76969","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=76969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/76970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}