{"id":78346,"date":"2018-03-19T12:16:57","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T16:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=78346"},"modified":"2018-03-19T12:16:57","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T16:16:57","slug":"19-utah-national-guard-soldiers-awarded-medals-for-valor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=78346","title":{"rendered":"19 Utah National Guard soldiers awarded medals for valor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
Sergeant First Class Madsen receives a hug from Major General and Adjutant General of the Utah National Guard Jeff Burton after Madsen was presented with The Silver Star, the United State’s third-highest award for valor, during a ceremony at the Utah National Guard Headquarters in Draper on Sunday, March 18, 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/center><\/p>\n

KSL<\/a> reports that nineteen special forces soldiers of the Utah National Guard received medals for valor for their actions in Afghanistan last year;<\/p>\n

Four of the soldiers of the Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group received Silver Stars \u2014 the nation’s third highest award for valor in combat.<\/p>\n

Three were awarded the Purple Heart, an award for those wounded or killed in action. Five received the Bronze Star with “V” device, and seven were awarded the Army Commendation Medal with “V” device, for other acts of heroism.<\/p>\n

Several Utah soldiers from two teams deployed to Afghanistan last year returned home wounded, and one Utah Guard Green Beret, Staff Sgt. Aaron Butler \u2014 who had been posthumously recognized with a Purple Heart \u2014 died in combat. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not often that I’ve seen a Major General hug it out with a sergeant first class like in the picture at the top of this post.<\/p>\n

“It’s incredibly humbling,” said Staff Sgt. Walrath, one of the four recipients of the Silver Star, in an interview after the ceremony. The Guard would not release first names of those honored for security reasons. “I really didn’t do anything more than my job, and that’s not me being humble, that’s just the fact.” <\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Other Silver Star recipients included Staff Sgt. Caldwell \u2014 who was also awarded a Purple Heart \u2014 for reacting quickly amid the chaos and panic of the Aug. 16 explosion to help manage the wounded, and Sgt. 1st Class Madsen, who, despite his wounds, crawled into an armored vehicle to return fire.<\/p>\n

Capt. Nelson was also awarded a Silver Star, for showing bravery in May, when his team was ambushed during a clearance operation of an enemy stronghold. When a teammate was shot in the head by a sniper, Nelson “displayed a disregard for his own safety as he immediately ran to the aid” of the wounded soldier, and later exposed himself to enemy fire to rally forces.<\/p>\n

“His actions inspired many to fight back in the face of overwhelming and unrelenting enemy fire ensuring the safe evacuation of a critically wounded U.S. casualty,” Fairbourn said.<\/p>\n

Other award recipients included:<\/p>\n

Staff Sgt. Edwards, Bronze Star with “V” device<\/p>\n

Staff Sgt. Kennington, Bronze Star with “V” device<\/p>\n

Sgt. 1st Class Mellor, Bronze Star with “V” device<\/p>\n

Master Sgt. Muramoto, Bronze Star with “V” device<\/p>\n

Sgt. 1st Class Speck, Bronze Star with “V” device<\/p>\n

Staff Sgt. Ashford, Army Commendation Medal with “V” device<\/p>\n

Staff Sgt. Flores, Army Commendation Medal with “V” device<\/p>\n

Sgt. Major Gifford, Army Commendation Medal with “V” device<\/p>\n

Staff Sgt. Lake, Army Commendation Medal with “V” device<\/p>\n

Sgt. Maj. Miller, Army Commendation Medal with “V” device<\/p>\n

Staff Sgt. Murray, Army Commendation Medal with “V” device<\/p>\n

Sgt. 1st Class Wilcox, Army Commendation Medal with “V” device<\/p>\n

Staff Sgt. Ashford, Purple Heart<\/p>\n

Staff Sgt. Caldwell, Purple Heart<\/p>\n

Sgt. Maj. Gifford, Purple Heart\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KSL reports that nineteen special forces soldiers of the Utah National Guard received medals for valor … 19 Utah National Guard soldiers awarded medals for valor<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78346","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=78346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}