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FORT RILEY, Kan. (April 10, 2012) -- Bullets were coming in from
everywhere. Twelve o'clock. Nine to 3 o'clock. Multiple shooters, 12
or more, hid behind huts, trees, houses, walls -- whatever they
could use to block the view of the four American Soldiers on the
roof.
Spc. Alexander Herron smiles after he is pinned with a Bronze Star Medal with V Device on Monday, March 26, 2012 at Fort Riley, Kan. He was one of three Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, to receive valorous awards for their actions during the brigade's latest deployment to Afghanistan.
Photo by Army Amanda Kim Stairrett |
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Spc. Alex Herron, a 21-year-old sniper and the son of a Virginia
Army National Guard noncommissioned officer, and his spotter,
22-year-old Spc. Wesley Farron, were two of those Soldiers on that
rooftop, Oct. 10, 2011, in the village of Jogram, Afghanistan.
The two small-town boys turned infantrymen were assigned to the
Sniper Section, Scout Platoon, Headquarters and Headquarters
Company, 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Heavy Brigade
Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division.
The day started out
rainy. The guys on the roof didn't have much cover. They and others
in the unit they were attached to at the time, 2nd Platoon, Alpha
Company, were in the process of filling sandbags to build up a
barrier.
Herron and Farron were scanning the area. Another
Soldier manned his M240B. The rain stopped. It was about 20 minutes |
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past noon. That's when "rounds started opening up on us," Herron
said recently at Fort Riley. |
The Soldiers stayed low and waited for a short burst of
rounds. When it finally came, Farron popped up and laid
cover fire for Herron. Herron rolled over and looked through
his sniper rifle for the hidden shooters.
Farron
needed to reload his M203 grenade launcher a few minutes
later, Herron said. Just after he opened and shut the tube,
he took a round just above his left side plate. The bullet
eventually exited and embedded itself in his plate carrier,
but not before it bounced around, effecting his liver,
kidney, lung, bile duct, diaphragm, esophagus and two ribs.
It felt like Mark McGuire hit him with a baseball,
Farron said March 26 at Fort Riley. He fell back and shouted
to his friend he'd been hit. He tried not to fpanic because
he might bleed more, he said.
Farron was shaking,
Herron said, and he jumped on top to shield him from the
incoming bullets. He unclipped his friend's side plates just
in time to see red pooling up on his side. Herron pulled up
Farron's shirt to get a better look at the wound. He cut up
Farron's T-shirt for bandages, according to information from
the Army.
It was time to get off the roof. They
worked together, avoiding fire to push and drag Farron to
the edge of the building. Herron lifted Farron over the edge
of the 10-to-12-foot roof and lowered him to two
noncommissioned officers on the ground.
Herron got
off the roof, too. The platoon medic handed him an occlusive
dressing, wiped blood away and sealed the wound, he said.
One of the sergeants told Herron to go on -- they could take
care of Farron.
"Tell my wife and my son I love
them," Farron said.
"Shut up, you're gonna be fine,"
he was told.
Herron fired from the ground for five
minutes or so until another sergeant said he would spot for
him back on the roof. The first two shooters they found were
800 meters out. Twelve o'clock.
The official Army
narrative read this action "disrupted the enemy attacks and
allowed the medical evacuation helicopters to land safely."
The firefight continued for an hour and a half,
Herron said.
The shooters were firing from multiple
locations, and they kept moving.
"I was just sending
rounds into dark holes where I thought it was coming from,"
he said.
The training kicked in, Herron said. More
than anything, he was mad his friend got shot. The anger got
him through the fight.
"Oh yeah, it helped a lot,"
he said.
What he described as grabbing weapons and
directing fires for everyone else, the Army described this
way:
"While the helicopters were taking off,
additional insurgents were attempting to maneuver to
fighting positions in an effort to engage the helicopters.
Herron then directed the machine gunners located near him to
fire upon the insurgents, effectively suppressing the
enemy's attempts."
The Army said Herron's bravely
saved his partner's life and "dealt a decisive blow to the
enemy's efforts that day."
For his actions, Herron
was presented with the Bronze Star with a valor device
during a March 26 ceremony at Fort Riley. The ceremony,
hosted by the 2nd Bn., 34th Armor Regt., also honored 1st
Sgt. Timothy Delarosa, who was presented with the same
medal, and Sgt. Michael E. Dow, who received an Army
Commendation Medal with a valor device.
Delarosa
contributed to a counter attack and the safety of his
company's patrol base June 18, 2011, in the Zaray District
of Afghanistan's Kandahar Province. Dow provided lifesaving
care to a Soldier injured by a rocket-propelled grenade,
Oct. 29, 2011, at Strongpoint Ghariban, Afghanistan.
Herron said he was thankful for the recognition, but
doesn't feel like he is the only one that did his part that
day. If it wasn't for the noncommissioned officers on the
ground and the medic, none of that would have been possible,
he said.
"I'm proud of it, but at the same time, I
wish some other guys would've gotten stuff also," he said of
the honor. "Like, I kinda take it as a bittersweet kind of
deal."
Farron was initially evacuated to Bagram
Airfield, Afghanistan, then to Germany, and finally to San
Antonio. He spent 10 days in a coma. He's endured 12
surgeries, so far, with more on the way. He lost 50 pounds.
He made sure he was at Fort Riley when his friends came
home, though, and he said he wants to stay in the Army.
Herron said Farron would've done the same for him. He
was just doing his job.
It takes a crazy person to
do what they do, Farron jokingly said about he and Herron
and the other infantrymen.
They still talk about that
day. It is a little unreal. There was no way they were going
to get hit, Herron thought. They were invincible. Herron
said it was the scariest and worst moment of his life. He
never wants it again, he said.
"He deserves it,"
Farron said of Herron's award for valor. "Somebody who
deserves an award got it."
By Army Amanda Kim Stairrett, 1st Inf. Div. Public Affairs
Army News Service
Copyright 2012
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