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Green Berets receive Silver Star for valor

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Staff Sgt. Linsey Clarke heard the explosion and rushed through machine gun fire to the burning truck.

The truck had been hit by a roadside bomb, and ammunition was detonating within inches of Staff Sgt. Eric Englehardt, one of his teammates, lying nearby. As rifle rounds cracked around him, Clarke calmly applied a tourniquet to Englehardt’s right leg and pulled him to cover. Then, he ran back through the maelstrom of fire to look for others.

For Clarke’s bravery under fire, he was awarded a Silver Star on Wednesday.

Clarke, 26 of Stanton, Va., is one of two Special Forces soldiers based in North Carolina awarded for repeatedly risking their lives to help their unit mates during battles in Afghanistan. Master Sgt. Anthony Siriwardene, 38, of Arlington, Va., was also awarded the Silver Star for his actions during a 56-hour gunfight in 2005.

The Silver Star is the military’s third highest award for valor.

Clarke’s team was on a reconnaissance patrol with Afghan National Army and Czech Special Operation soldiers in Khordi, a village in southern Afghanistan, in February. The patrol was about to cross a river when they were attacked with rocket propelled grenades, machine guns and roadside bombs.

“It wasn’t as accurate as we’d seen before, but it definitely got your attention,” said Clarke, one of the team’s two medics. “As we were moving around, you could hear the snaps and cracks over your head.”

After treating Englehardt, Clarke returned and started treating Master Sgt. David Hurt. He was badly burned and lying near the back of the destroyed truck. Throwing Hurt’s arm over his shoulders, he helped him get to cover.

After the mission, Clarke said he caught his commander writing up the citation for a Silver Star.

“I told him I didn’t want it. I felt like I didn’t deserve it,” Clarke said. “I was just doing what I was supposed to do. I still don’t see it as significant what I did that day. There were so many people doing what they were supposed to do.”

Four years earlier, Siriwardene and his team were on a similar mission in Zabul province in southern Afghanistan.

He was driving in the first truck into a horseshoe-shaped valley when his unit got ambushed for the first of seven attacks over the next 56 hours.

“This was their territory. This was their home. They fought out of there year-round,” Siriwardene said. “They brought their guns. We brought ours. We decided to have it out.”

During one of the last attacks, a truck in the rear of the column was hit and under heavy fire. Siriwardene raced to the truck and pulled the gunner to safety just as the turret burst into flames. As the rest of his team pushed farther down the road to break the ambush, Siriwardene stayed behind to gather up the Afghan National Army soldiers that were trapped in the kill zone.

“If not for the bravery of Sergeant Siriwardene, moving under enormous amounts of fire, ensuring no Afghan National Army were left behind, the Afghan National Army element would have sustained tremendous losses,” the medal citation said.

Like Clarke, Siriwardene didn’t think he deserved any more recognition than his teammates.

“I don’t remember too much of what I was doing. I did glance at the other guys on my team. Everybody on my team fought and it was amazing watching those guys work,” Siriwardene said. “Every one of those guys was phenomenal. With different personnel, the outcome would have been worse.”