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01-11-2009, 05:50 PM
At daybreak on Sept. 19, 2005, Spc. Jason Harrington and his four-man long-range surveillance team were returning to base after an overnight mission in Ramadi, Iraq, when a call went out for volunteers to help carry out a round of patrols with another platoon.
Harrington and his team members, Sgt. Mike Egan and Spc. William Fernandez with the 104th Infantry Detachment (LRS), raised their hands for the patrol, but only two men were needed.
Fernandez convinced Harrington to stay and get some rest. He didn’t get much, recalling that someone came into the room to report his guys had been attacked.
Harrington headed to the scene with other soldiers and, by the end of the day, two of his friends were confirmed dead and Harrington’s actions would earn him a Silver Star, which he received Dec. 27.
Ramadi, 75 miles west of Baghdad, was one of the most dangerous areas in Iraq at the time. The LRS soldiers from the Pennsylvania National Guard’s 28th Infantry Division helped with patrols along with their primary mission to watch for bomb-planting activity from city building windows.
Intelligence indicated that insurgents were using a railroad bridge over a canal on the south side of the city to ferry ordnance into an area that had seen little U.S. troop presence in preceding months, giving the enemy ample opportunity to seed the area with buried bombs.
“The insurgents used these roadside bombs like a conventional enemy would use mines in an obstacle belt. Some of the bombs we found there had been sub-surface laid for over six months,” Brig. Gen. John Gronski, Harrington’s brigade commander at the time, told Army Times.
The initial attack took place near a railroad crossing atop a 20-foot berm. A triggerman had detonated one of those sub-surface bombs consisting of as many as eight deeply buried 155mm mortar rounds.
“From what we heard, they saw some guys peeking over the railroad tracks and they went after them and before they crossed over the tracks an [improvised explosive device] went off and basically destroyed the Humvee,” said Harrington, who left the Army in 2006. “Only the hatch was left, it was like a shredded piece of metal.”
Harrington’s two teammates had, in fact, been killed along with 1st Lt. Mark Dooley, a member of the Vermont National Guard who was riding shotgun with Fernandez at the wheel and Egan in the turret.
“I grabbed my bag with my radio in it, thank God, and headed out” toward the site with the platoon that was to go out next, said Harrington, who was his team’s radio/telephone operator, or RTO.
Harrington’s decision to take his radio on this mission would end up preventing more loss of life, Gronski said.
Harrington said he never imagined he would earn a Silver Star and doesn’t believe he deserves it, thinking instead of the three soldiers killed on Sept. 19.
“Technically, this award should go to them,” Harrington, 27, of Lancaster, Pa., told Army Times. He received his Silver Star in a ceremony in Coraopolis, Pa.
“They’re the ones who gave their lives. I don’t feel like I truly deserve this, I mean, I potentially saved lives that day. I’m just humbled,” he said.
‘Everything just went black’
Harrington recalls leaving base as part of the quick reaction force of eight men in two Humvees. It was about 2 p.m. and a group of soldiers was already working to police up the area of the attack, so Harrington’s patrol looped back into town and down a dirt road on the other side of the railroad tracks, fearing there would be additional IEDs on the way to the site of the attack.
That’s when the first explosion stopped them in their tracks.
“We were driving down the road about 40 miles an hour and all of a sudden everything just went black,” he said. The front end of his vehicle was destroyed and for a few minutes dirt, dust, smoke and ringing ears stumped the crew.
“We got out and after checking each other and figuring out that nobody was seriously hurt I started engaging possible positions with additional triggermen, not knowing that our friends were probably just on the other side of the tracks,” he said.
Within minutes, his platoon sergeant was attaching a 5-foot-long tow strap to the rear of the disabled Humvee and their plan was to head back to base. They had traveled only about 100 meters when another explosion rocked their only working Humvee, rendering both vehicles unusable.
“How nothing happened to any of us amazes me,” Harrington said. “My platoon sergeant got knocked out and had his calf peppered with shrapnel, but he was fine, he was able to walk.”
But they were now stranded in open terrain with both vehicles down, two crew-served weapons down and no communications in either damaged Humvee. Having been struck by two successive buried bombs, they also didn’t know how many more were around them, but they knew they were being watched.
Harrington grabbed his radio and exposed himself to possible enemy fire to contact higher headquarters, and he also established communication with the crew on the other side of the berm.
That’s when they found out their friends were among the dead, and a silence fell over the group.
Vulnerable and stranded on the bomb-infested dirt road, the crippled patrol waited more than an hour before an M113 troop carrier was seen barreling down the road to get them. Once again, Harrington warded off possible disaster by contacting the vehicle’s commander and warning them to get off the roadway and drive on the side of the road instead.
“By Harrington getting out of the up-armored Humvee, engaging an insurgent position, taking the radio equipment and moving to a point where he could get better communications with his higher headquarters, he knew that there was a very high likelihood that he wouldn’t make it back that day,” Gronski said. “We absolutely could have lost more soldiers.”
Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2009/01/army_silverstar_011209w/
Harrington and his team members, Sgt. Mike Egan and Spc. William Fernandez with the 104th Infantry Detachment (LRS), raised their hands for the patrol, but only two men were needed.
Fernandez convinced Harrington to stay and get some rest. He didn’t get much, recalling that someone came into the room to report his guys had been attacked.
Harrington headed to the scene with other soldiers and, by the end of the day, two of his friends were confirmed dead and Harrington’s actions would earn him a Silver Star, which he received Dec. 27.
Ramadi, 75 miles west of Baghdad, was one of the most dangerous areas in Iraq at the time. The LRS soldiers from the Pennsylvania National Guard’s 28th Infantry Division helped with patrols along with their primary mission to watch for bomb-planting activity from city building windows.
Intelligence indicated that insurgents were using a railroad bridge over a canal on the south side of the city to ferry ordnance into an area that had seen little U.S. troop presence in preceding months, giving the enemy ample opportunity to seed the area with buried bombs.
“The insurgents used these roadside bombs like a conventional enemy would use mines in an obstacle belt. Some of the bombs we found there had been sub-surface laid for over six months,” Brig. Gen. John Gronski, Harrington’s brigade commander at the time, told Army Times.
The initial attack took place near a railroad crossing atop a 20-foot berm. A triggerman had detonated one of those sub-surface bombs consisting of as many as eight deeply buried 155mm mortar rounds.
“From what we heard, they saw some guys peeking over the railroad tracks and they went after them and before they crossed over the tracks an [improvised explosive device] went off and basically destroyed the Humvee,” said Harrington, who left the Army in 2006. “Only the hatch was left, it was like a shredded piece of metal.”
Harrington’s two teammates had, in fact, been killed along with 1st Lt. Mark Dooley, a member of the Vermont National Guard who was riding shotgun with Fernandez at the wheel and Egan in the turret.
“I grabbed my bag with my radio in it, thank God, and headed out” toward the site with the platoon that was to go out next, said Harrington, who was his team’s radio/telephone operator, or RTO.
Harrington’s decision to take his radio on this mission would end up preventing more loss of life, Gronski said.
Harrington said he never imagined he would earn a Silver Star and doesn’t believe he deserves it, thinking instead of the three soldiers killed on Sept. 19.
“Technically, this award should go to them,” Harrington, 27, of Lancaster, Pa., told Army Times. He received his Silver Star in a ceremony in Coraopolis, Pa.
“They’re the ones who gave their lives. I don’t feel like I truly deserve this, I mean, I potentially saved lives that day. I’m just humbled,” he said.
‘Everything just went black’
Harrington recalls leaving base as part of the quick reaction force of eight men in two Humvees. It was about 2 p.m. and a group of soldiers was already working to police up the area of the attack, so Harrington’s patrol looped back into town and down a dirt road on the other side of the railroad tracks, fearing there would be additional IEDs on the way to the site of the attack.
That’s when the first explosion stopped them in their tracks.
“We were driving down the road about 40 miles an hour and all of a sudden everything just went black,” he said. The front end of his vehicle was destroyed and for a few minutes dirt, dust, smoke and ringing ears stumped the crew.
“We got out and after checking each other and figuring out that nobody was seriously hurt I started engaging possible positions with additional triggermen, not knowing that our friends were probably just on the other side of the tracks,” he said.
Within minutes, his platoon sergeant was attaching a 5-foot-long tow strap to the rear of the disabled Humvee and their plan was to head back to base. They had traveled only about 100 meters when another explosion rocked their only working Humvee, rendering both vehicles unusable.
“How nothing happened to any of us amazes me,” Harrington said. “My platoon sergeant got knocked out and had his calf peppered with shrapnel, but he was fine, he was able to walk.”
But they were now stranded in open terrain with both vehicles down, two crew-served weapons down and no communications in either damaged Humvee. Having been struck by two successive buried bombs, they also didn’t know how many more were around them, but they knew they were being watched.
Harrington grabbed his radio and exposed himself to possible enemy fire to contact higher headquarters, and he also established communication with the crew on the other side of the berm.
That’s when they found out their friends were among the dead, and a silence fell over the group.
Vulnerable and stranded on the bomb-infested dirt road, the crippled patrol waited more than an hour before an M113 troop carrier was seen barreling down the road to get them. Once again, Harrington warded off possible disaster by contacting the vehicle’s commander and warning them to get off the roadway and drive on the side of the road instead.
“By Harrington getting out of the up-armored Humvee, engaging an insurgent position, taking the radio equipment and moving to a point where he could get better communications with his higher headquarters, he knew that there was a very high likelihood that he wouldn’t make it back that day,” Gronski said. “We absolutely could have lost more soldiers.”
Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2009/01/army_silverstar_011209w/