Obama Awards Medal of Honor to Army Ranger

WASHINGTON, July 12, 2011 — Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma today award­ed the country’s high­est mil­i­tary hon­or to Sgt. 1st Class Leroy A. Petry, an Army Ranger who was shot in both legs and had his hand blown off while sav­ing his fel­low sol­diers dur­ing a fire­fight in Afghanistan.

Medal of Honor
Army Sgt. 1st Class Leroy A. Petry received the Medal of Hon­or at a July 12, 2011, White House cer­e­mo­ny for con­spic­u­ous gal­lantry in com­bat.
U.S. Army pho­to
Click to enlarge

Petry became only the sec­ond liv­ing vet­er­an of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to receive the award, which Oba­ma pre­sent­ed dur­ing a White House cer­e­mo­ny attend­ed by Petry, his wife and four chil­dren, and more than a hun­dred of his fam­i­ly mem­bers, most­ly from his native New Mexico. 

Deputy Defense Sec­re­tary William J. Lynn III, Vice Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Corps Gen. James E. Cartwright, Army Sec­re­tary John M. McHugh and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mar­tin E. Dempsey also attend­ed the cer­e­mo­ny, as did the mem­bers of the leg­endary Delta Com­pa­ny, 2nd Bat­tal­ion, 75th Ranger Reg­i­ment, with which Petry served. 

Call­ing Petry, 31, “a true hero,” Oba­ma recount­ed how the sol­dier was on his sev­enth com­bat deploy­ment in Afghanistan on May 26, 2008, when he took part in a high-risk day­time oper­a­tion to cap­ture an insur­gent leader in a com­pound in Pak­tia province, near the Pak­istan border. 

As heli­copters deliv­ered Petry and the oth­er Rangers into the area, they were met with heavy auto­mat­ic weapons fire. Petry and Sgt. Lucas Robin­son were wound­ed as they moved to secure a back court­yard. The two found cov­er behind a chick­en coop and were joined by Sgt. Daniel Hig­gins, a team leader, who was assess­ing their wounds when an ene­my grenade injured Robin­son and Higgins. 

Two more Rangers, Staff Sgt. James Roberts and Spc. Christo­pher Gath­er­cole, came to help just as anoth­er grenade was lobbed at the unit. 

“Every human impulse would tell a per­son to turn away,” Oba­ma said. “Every sol­dier is trained to seek cov­er. That’s what Sergeant Petry could have done.” Instead, he said, Petry did some­thing extra­or­di­nary: he picked up the grenade to throw it back. 

“What com­pels a per­son to risk every­thing so that oth­ers might live?” the pres­i­dent asked. He said the “roots of Leroy’s val­or are all around us” in the pres­ence of his par­ents, four broth­ers, and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers. Oba­ma said Petry answered the ques­tion while meet­ing with him before the cer­e­mo­ny, say­ing that his fel­low sol­diers are his broth­ers, and he pro­tect­ed them just as he would his family. 

“With that self­less act, Leroy saved two of his Ranger broth­ers, and they are with us today,” he said. 

Petry, shot in both legs by assault-rifle fire, picked up the grenade to throw it back at the ene­my, and it det­o­nat­ed, ampu­tat­ing his right hand. Still, Oba­ma said, Petry “remained calm, put on his own tourni­quet, and con­tin­ued to lead, even telling medics how to treat his wounds.” 

Today, Petry has a small plaque attached to his pros­thet­ic arm with names of the 75th Regiment’s fall­en, includ­ing Gath­er­cole, who was killed in the oper­a­tion for which Petry was hon­ored. Oba­ma paid trib­ute to Gathercole’s fam­i­ly at today’s ceremony. 

“Leroy Petry shows us that true heroes still exist, and they are clos­er than you think,” the pres­i­dent said. “There are heroes all around us. They are the mil­lions in uni­form who have served for the past 10 years.” They are the force behind the force, the pres­i­dent added, cit­ing Ash­ley Petry, who kept their fam­i­ly “Army strong” while her hus­band was deployed. 

Petry, who enlist­ed in 1999 and also served two deploy­ments in Iraq, could have retired with hon­ors. Instead, Oba­ma said, he chose to re-enlist indef­i­nite­ly, and recent­ly com­plet­ed his eighth deploy­ment in Afghanistan, despite con­tin­u­ing to strug­gle with his wounds. 

“His ser­vice speaks to the very essence of Amer­i­ca: no mat­ter how hard the jour­ney, no mat­ter how steep the climb, we don’t give up,” the pres­i­dent said. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →