SFC Alwyn C. Cashe
Since being part of the 2010 Medal of Honor Convention, I have read and published scores of narratives for valor medals. While the actions of these men are all truly incredible, the actions of Sergeant First Class Alwyn C. Cashe in Iraq on Oct. 17, 2005 are astonishing. Especially considering he was only awarded the Silver Star.
Cashe occupied the gunner’s turret of a Bradley fighting vehicle when it was hit by an IED. Cashe managed to escape the vehicle, but the vehicle’s fuel cell had ruptured and ignited, setting fire to the men stuck inside. Cashe was covered in fuel, and insurgent small-arms fire was targeting the Bradley. Cashe rescued the driver, who was on fire, and opened the hatch to rescue the burning soldiers still inside. His uniform caught fire, but he continued his rescue efforts – even running into the inferno to pull out the medic.
Of those wounded in the attack, Cashe’s burns were the most severe. He succumbed to his wounds on Nov. 8, 2005. I run into burning buildings for a living as a fireman. But I cannot imagine running into a burning vehicle while soaked in fuel and on fire myself to rescue multiple victims. This man did, he died doing so, and was only awarded the military’s third-highest medal for valor. Lyndon Johnson got a Silver Star for just riding on an airplane.
From the narrative to accompany the award:
Sergeant First Class Alwyn C. Cashe, United States Army, distinguished himself by exceptional gallantry in action in the face of violence while serving as the platoon 1h sergeant of 151 Platoon, Alpha Company (Hard rock). 151 Battalion, 15 Infantry Regiment, based at FOB Mackenzie, Salah a Din Province, Iraq.
On 17 October 2005 , SFC Alwyn Cashe’s heroic actions saved the lives of six of his fellow Soldiers. At approximately 1915 hrs, his platoon departed the forward operating base along Route Jaime to conduct a route clearance operation along a supply route that ran through the town of Duliaya; a town adjacent to the FOB.
After traveling about 4-5 kilometers, the lead Bradley fighting vehicle, of which SFC Cashe was in the gunner’s hatch, struck a vehicle detonated IED emplaced across the route at grid MC 25377243. The blast ignited the fuel cell causing fuel to spew throughout the vehicle igniting a fire and causing the vehicle to roll to a stop. Also, from the forward left flank of the blast site, the platoon received enemy small-arms fire.
Soaked with fuel himself, SFC Cashe managed to dismount from the vehicle and assist the driver, SPC Howe, whose uniform was on fire. SFC Cashe extinguished the flames on SPC Howe.
Six soldiers and an interpreter were in the troop compartment of the burning vehicle. Flames had engulfed the vehicle and were darting from the weapons ports. One of the soldiers in the back of the vehicle attempted to open the hatch door in an attempt to help the soldiers escape. The flames intensified and everyone inside was aflame. Without regard for his personal safety, SFC Cashe rushed to the back of the vehicle, managed to help open the door and began to pull the soldiers out, one at a time. In doing this, the flames totally gripped his fueled soaked uniform causing severe, painful burns. Despite this pain, he bravely continued to pull his troops out of the vehicle and feverishly worked to put their flames out. As the chaos continued, SFC Cashe noticed that the platoon medic was still inside. He rushed back to the vehicle, reached through the flames and pulled out the medic. All this despite being on fire himself.
Within moments, a trail vehicle arrived and assisted with the CASEVAC. Although severely burned, SFC Cashe bravely continued to take control of the situation as besthe could. Shortly thereafter, the company first sergeant, 1SG Chris Mackenzie, accompanied by medics and other soldiers from the company arrived and began to evacuate the severely burned soldiers, the worst of which was SFC Cashe. The FOB helipad served as the LZ/PZ for the air evacuation. Badly burned, all six soldiers were alive when they were air evacuated. The interpreter did not survive the blast and was immediately transported to the battalion morgue.
Throughout the nightmarish ordeal, ten soldiers were injured. Six of the ten were treated at the Balad Hospital. Five of those six, including SFC Cashe were later evacuated through Landstuhl to the burn center in San Antonio, Texas. Sadly, over the next few weeks, four of the six died of wounds.
Despite being the most severely injured with 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 72% of his body, SFC Alwyn Cashe endured while his soldiers were alive. He suffered through painful surgeries, infections, organ failure and loss of body parts as he continued to be the consummate Platoon Sergeant to his Soldiers. SFC Alwyn Cashe died of his wounds on 8 November 2005. He was the last of those so severely injured that terrible night to die.
SFC Cashe’s selfless and gallant actions allowed the loved ones of these brave soldiers to spend precious time by their sides before each succumbed to their dreadful injuries.
Although he is no longer with us, SFC Alwyn C. Cashe is the type of hero that historians will write about.
His actions are in keeping with the finest traditions of military heroism and reflect greatly upon himself and the US Army.
More Blackfive reading on SFC Cashe here, here, and here.
Not to take away from the honor and tradition of our military decorations, but sometimes cloth and metal don’t quite seem sufficient to recognize people like Sergeant First Class Alwyn C. Cashe. I expect that his medal will be upgraded. If not, it is time to overhaul the awards process.
In: Military · Tagged with: Iraq, Medal of Honor, Silver Star, US Army, War on Terror
Clearing the way
U.S. Army Pfc. Jovan Nikolic and Sgt. Kevin Baker, both assigned to the 573rd Clearance Company attached to the 1st Engineer Battalion, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, discuss mission details before departing on a convoy route-clearing operation near Tikrit, Iraq, Feb. 22, 2010. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Petty Officer Michael Heckman/Released)
In: Images, Military · Tagged with: Iraq, US Army
Military Roundup
Photo of the Day: MARSOC (the Marine Corps’ special operations component) in Afghanistan
Pirates: USS Nicholas exchanges fire with pirates in Seychelles, captures five, sinks pirates’ skiff and captures mothership. USS Faragut sinks a pirate mothership during a separate incident in the Somali Basin.
The search continues for a missing airman after a Navy E-2C Hawkeye crashed in the Indian Ocean on 31 March. The other three crew members were recovered without injury.
Iraq: Despite a planned withdrawal that will roughly half our troop levels in Iraq by August 31, the number of U.S. special operations troops will remain at their current levels Special operations forces are currently deployed in 79 countries.
DADT update: Army secretary’s about-face on DADT moratorium
Ground summary (Afghanistan / Ground summary (Iraq) / Airpower summary
Army secretary does about-face on DADT moratorium
In: Military Roundup · Tagged with: Don't Ask Don't Tell, Iraq, pirates, US Navy
Victory defined
Can we achieve victory in our current conflict? Although our president won’t use the term “victory,” we at least owe it to our troops to remember what it means and to keep charging forward. Victor Davis Hanson illustrates:
Victory has usually been defined throughout the ages as forcing the enemy to accept certain political objectives. “Forcing” usually meant killing, capturing, or wounding men at arms. In today’s polite and politically correct society we seem to have forgotten that nasty but eternal truth in the confusing struggle to defeat radical Islamic terrorism.
Humans have been fighting wars since before Moses was a corporal – and always will – because it’s basic human nature for one group to want something they don’t have, or want to eradicate people they don’t like. And while we would prefer that wars could be executed with technology, non-lethal ammunition, and negotiations, the truth is that war will always be decided by soldiers and Marines with guns.
In the case of our current conflict, the U.S. military is defending against (albeit with either one or sometimes both hands tied behind our backs) a supremacist movement that wants to kill/convert/subjugate those who don’t practice their form of Islam.
And why should this struggle be so “confusing?” Our enemies have done us the favor of identifying themselves. All we have left to do is acknowledge their declarations of war and return the favor. We aren’t fighting Muslims as many have wrongly suggested, otherwise we would have long since bombed U.S. mosques and Islamic centers. We are fighting jihadists. It’s just that simple.
What stopped the imperial German army from absorbing France in World War I and eventually made the Kaiser abdicate was the destruction of a once magnificent army on the Western front — superb soldiers and expertise that could not easily be replaced. Saddam Hussein left Kuwait in 1991 when he realized that the U.S. military was destroying his very army. Even the North Vietnamese agreed to a peace settlement in 1973, given their past horrific losses on the ground and the promise that American air power could continue indefinitely inflicting its damage on the North.
When an enemy finally gives up, it is for a combination of reasons — material losses, economic hardship, loss of territory, erosion of civilian morale, fright, mental exhaustion, internal strife. But we forget that central to a concession of defeat is often the loss of the nation’s soldiers — or even the threat of such deaths.
Our enemies know they have no chance on the battlefield, which is precisely why we are fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, and not fighting Iran and Saudi Arabia in a conventional war. But while we are beating them on the battlefield, little damage has been done to our enemies on other fronts. When your enemy is committed to an ideology that treasures death more than life, then “material losses, economic hardship,” etc. will have far less effect than it would on say, Germans. But this is no reason to throw in the towel. The more mujahideen we kill, the more suicide bombers blow themselves up, the more resources our enemy expends, the less they have.
And as we kill the jihadists on one hand, on the other we are helping the non-jihadist Muslims wherever our troops operate. Our enemy can’t maintain their populations in a perpetual dark ages, surrounded with death and destruction, while the U.S. is constructing roads, schools, and dams. Sooner or later people will realize that the jihad means death while cooperation means prosperity.
Victory is most easily obtained by ending the enemy’s ability to resist — and by offering him an alternative future that might appear better than the past. We may not like to think all of that entails killing those who wish to kill us, but it does, always has, and tragically always will — until the nature of man himself changes.
All that remains is for us to maintain our resolve and to show our enemies that we will not compromise with supremacists.
In: Military · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Iraq, jihad
Explaining Biden’s incoherence on Iraq
Victor Davis Hanson makes a brilliant explanation on Biden’s (and Obama’s) numerous contradictory positions on Iraq over the years, which he also chronicles.
If one were to factor in four outside variables — a) proximity of presidential elections; b) current polls regarding Iraq; c) current polls regarding George Bush’s popularity; d) current level of violence in Iraq — one could pretty much have predicted all of Biden’s seemingly incoherent positions and many of Obama’s.
That is, they are not illogical, but simply shadow the above four considerations at any given time.
E.g., Bush polling well, election way off, majority support for the war, progress in Iraq = bipartisan, statesmanlike support for an ongoing American war in Iraq.
But Bush not polling well, presidential or congressional elections coming up, majority of Americans polling against the war, deadlock in Iraq = shrill, partisan attack on ongoing American war in Iraq.
We expect this from most of our politicians on most issues. But in times of war, when thousands of Americans are executing a policy abroad at great risk to their lives, it is a dangerous thing to predicate support almost entirely on politics.
It’s not about national security. It’s not about the lives of those they send overseas. It’s about power.
In: Politics · Tagged with: Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Iraq, Joe Biden, Victor Davis Hanson
A look at the Constitutions of Iraq and Afghanistan
While we are fighting al Qaeda and their associated groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would behoove us to analyze what we are leaving behind in our wake.
The constitutions of the two countries in no way represent the liberty and justice for all that our founding documents codify. D.L. Adams writes at Family Security Matters:
Article One of the constitution of Afghanistan states that “Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state.” Article 2 of the constitution of Iraq states that “Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation.” Both states identify Islam as the bedrock of the state and also the law of the land.
Our troops sacrifice for our liberty and security, but apparently they are also sacrificing for the establishment of an Islamic supremacist government. Islamic states have Islamic – or Shariah – law. That’s the law where Muslims are not subject to punishment for killing non-Muslims, but Muslims are given the death penalty for leaving Islam. Criticizing Islam is also worthy of the death penalty. Rape victims are stoned while the rapists go free. Except for their reproductive qualities, women are less valuable than goats. Little girls can be taken as wives (the prophet Muhammad married Aisha at six).
Would we be spending trillions of dollars and thousands of lives if we were propping up Christian regimes that had a similar legal system? I can only imagine the outcry from the progressives. So why do we do it for Islamic governments?
The bottom line is that our enemies must be defeated. But in doing so, we might reconsider how we interact with the countries that emerge from the wake of the Ba’athists in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
[Originally posted at Blackfive]
In: Religion · Tagged with: Afghanistan, Iraq, Islam, Shariah law
Iraqi Insurgents Hacking Drone Video
A fully armed MQ-9 Reaper taxis down a runway in Southwest Asia. The Reaper's primary mission is as a persistent hunter-killer against emerging targets. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson)
Iranian-backed Shiite fighters in Iraq have been hacking the live video feeds from U.S. unmanned drones according to senior defense officials. The Wall Street Journal reports that the insurgents are using a Russian-made, off-the-shelf program called SkyGrabber to view the non-encrypted information coming from the drones.
Officials say that there have been no reports of insurgents interfering with the flights, and also assure that no harm has come to our troops and that no missions have been compromised as a result of the security breach.
“That may be true today, but may not be the case in future conflicts,” remarks Bill Roggio of LongWarJournal.
Roggio speculates:
Don’t be surprised if you read a story in the next few days or weeks saying that elements within Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency have been monitoring US Predator and Reaper feeds, and relaying targeting information to al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. I have heard far too many stories about how senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders miraculously avoided attacks and left the target sites just minutes before the strikes. The officials repeatedly told me that they believed the anti-US elements in the ISI were tipping off the terrorist commanders before the strikes.
Many hours – even days – worth of recorded drone video feeds have been found on captured insurgent computers operating in Iraq, and sources say that feeds have also been intercepted by enemies operating in Afghanistan. According to WSJ‘s sources, the Pentagon has known of the encryption vulnerability since the Bosnia campaign during the 1990′s, but assumed that our enemies would not have the wherewithal to intercept the signals.
If the Pentagon is going to assume anything, they should be assuming that our enemies will compromise our communications, and design systems with that possibility in mind.
In: Military · Tagged with: al Qaeda, Bill Roggio, drones, Inter-Services Intelligence, Iraq, ISI, MQ-1 Predator, MQ-9 Reaper, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Pakistan, Taliban
New Evidence of Saddam-bin Laden Connection
We didn’t invade Iraq because of 9/11 and we didn’t invade because of Saddam’s connections to Islamic terrorists. But he was connected. And many don’t realize, but we had been authorized to attack Iraq previously by Congress.
Ryan Mauro writes at Pajamas Media:
The lead prosecutor of Saddam Hussein, Ja’far al-Musawi, says that he has seen official documents that prove that his regime was involved with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Last year, a Kurdish newspaper published an Iraqi intelligence document from 2002 referencing a proposed meeting with al-Zawahiri to discuss a “revenge operation” against Saudi Arabia at Saddam Hussein’s request. If previous ties had not been maintained and if there was such hostility between the secularist government of Saddam and al-Qaeda as is assumed, such a plan would never have been hatched by Saddam or been acted upon by his intelligence service.
A source at the Iraq Memory Foundation, which is going through thousands of files to document Saddam Hussein’s reign, has reported that they have seen documents showing a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda.
In: terrorism · Tagged with: al Qaeda, Iraq, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein
Navy SEALs Face Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist
The "alleged" terrorist's handiwork: two of the four American contractors who were mutilated and burned in Fallujah, 2004.
Can you believe the world we live in?
NavyTimes.com reports that three SEALs are facing charges of alleged mishandling of a high-value target. The SEALS captured Ahmed Hashim Abed – who allegedly was the mastermind of the 2004 ambush in Fallujah that resulted in the deaths and subsequent mutilation of four Blackwater employees – one a former SEAL himself, two former Rangers, and a former Army Night Stalker. The SEALs refused non-judicial punishment and opted for the court-martial.
One defense attorney said they had refused to accept nonjudicial punishment, administrative actions that some in the military may consider as a admission of guilt.
Neal Puckett, a defense attorney who is representing McCabe, said the SEALs are being essentially charged for allegedly giving the detainee “a punch in the gut.”
The “alleged” terrorist claims to have a fat lip. How much more FUBAR is our military going to become? For crying out loud: Even the French military is attacking the pirate terrorists off the coast of Somalia, while our Navy can only do so after finding a loophole in the Obama administration’s legal gauntlet.
In: Military, Politics · Tagged with: Army Rangers, Blackwater, Iraq, Navy SEALs, Night Stalkers, Obama administration, US Navy
Former NBA basketball player serving in Iraq
Kent Horner/NBAE — Getty Images
Specialist Tim James can say that he is one of the few soldiers who were actually drafted. In 1999, James was the 25th overall pick in the NBA draft. Following a career in the U.S. and European leagues, James joined the Army, and now serves in Iraq.
But according to The New York Times, he carries an “M-15 rifle.” Hadn’t heard of that one before.
James, who earned more than $2 million playing in the N.B.A., is making less than $2,000 a month. His commander, Capt. Curtis Byron, said he was unaware that the 6-foot-7 soldier in his unit was a former professional basketball player until James sought permission to be interviewed for news articles.
“Spc. James has always been very respectful and professional since being in the unit,” Captain Byron wrote in an e-mail message. “His job is not always the most glamorous, but he completes his missions in a timely manner and gets the job done.” He added, “He seems to be a fairly humble guy and takes it all in stride.”
To the best of my knowledge, James is the first athlete to join the service since brothers Pat and Kevin Tillman fought with the 2nd Raider Battalion.
In: Military · Tagged with: basketball, Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom
