bobdina
10-29-2009, 08:08 PM
Silver Star
The Silver Star is the third highest U.S. combat-only award. Established in 1918 as the Citation Star, in 1932 a provision allowed servicemen to receive it retroactively. It has been awarded for actions as far back as the Spanish-American War.
'After I threw that first grenade, it got pretty quiet'
Silver Star
earned
12.2.03
while serving with
Echo Company, 51st Long Range Surveillance
The Silver Star and Purple Heart Army Sgt. Tommy Rieman wear are for helping his patrol survive an ambush in a very bad Iraq neighborhood called Abu Ghraib.
Insurgents attacked the eight members of Echo Company, 51st Long Range Surveillance, just a few miles outside the gates of the Abu Ghraib prison, Rieman said.
That night, Dec. 3, 2003, the LRS team had been anticipating a routine mission, Rieman told Stripes in an interview at the Pentagon, where he works in the Army’s personnel division.
It was going to be 12 or 14 boring hours of sitting very quietly in a well-concealed position, keeping eyes on a suspected insurgent’s front door and collecting information on who was coming and going.
Because he knew the area better than the team’s official leader, Rieman was guiding the group on its way to the place where they would hide the Humvees.
He was in the driver’s seat of his Humvee, holding his flashlight in one hand and using it to peer at the map awkwardly unfolded in his other hand, when the air around him exploded.
Three rocket-propelled grenades crisscrossed the convoy’s path. Two just barely missed the vehicles, but one struck a soldier manning the gun in the back of the third truck, Sgt. Bruce Robinson, literally cutting his right leg out from beneath him.
Beneath Rieman’s vehicle, or near it (it was too confusing for him to tell), a bomb exploded. Two more went off at the same time.
Rieman was briefly deafened by the noise of the fusillade, which seemed to come from everywhere at once. U.S. troops later found 10 dug-in positions along the roadside.
Rieman’s gunner, Spc. Robert Macallister, cried out that he had been shot in the butt. Rieman was shot twice, where his vest didn’t offer protection: in the chest under his right arm, and across it. He also took shrapnel in his chest, stomach and ear.
But neither Rieman nor his gunner paid attention to their wounds. Rieman leaned back against the gunner, trying to shield as much of his legs as possible with his torso, and began firing back with his rifle, tossing some grenades for good measure. The gunner started hitting the trigger on the .50-caliber machine gun in the roof turret ring for all he was worth.
The tiny convoy sped out of the kill zone and stopped in a clearing about 2 miles down the road to deal with the wounded.
Rieman staggered out of his truck, blood running down his uniform. Ignoring cries from other soldiers to sit down, he started to make his way back to the truck to see how Robinson was doing. Not well — he was bleeding out from the gaping hole where his leg had been and in danger of dying. Immediate air evacuation was called.
Rieman started setting up a defensive perimeter so the choppers could land.
Suddenly, the group of stunned and bleeding soldiers began taking a huge volume of fire again, from the cover of some palm trees. U.S. troops scouting the area later estimated that at least 50 insurgents were positioned there for the second round of the ambush.
As the hail of bullets began again, Rieman saw red.
“I wasn’t scared, I was [angry]” during the original ambush, he said. “I couldn’t believe they had actually gone up against us in the first place.”
Now, the enemy was keeping the Americans from helping their dying friends.
“Oh no you will NOT,” he roared, whether in his head or vocally, he doesn’t know.
But by this point, the Americans had expended almost all of their ammunition. They were prepared for emergencies. They weren’t prepared for a war.
But there was one weapon Rieman hadn’t expended yet: he still had well over a dozen 40 mm grenades, looped neatly in their little holders on his combat vest and sagging the bottoms of his cargo pants.
“I was screaming at them,” as he ripped those grenades from his vest and his pockets and stuffed them into the M2-3 grenade launcher, yanking back the trigger and firing one after another at the palm grove, until the barrel on the gun was red-hot.
What was he yelling?
“I don’t like to say,” Rieman said. “It was curse words. Bad stuff.”
Were they yelling back?
“No. After I threw that first grenade, it got pretty quiet.”
The firing from the palm grove had stopped. The medical evacuation choppers were able to land.
Sgt. Bruce Robinson ended up losing his left leg, as well as his right, but he survived, thanks in part to some amazing surgery performed by Air Force doctors in flight from Iraq to Landstuhl in Germany, Rieman said.
Now that he has a wife and a young son, Rieman decided to leave active duty and work with America’s Army, an outreach and recruiting project, as a full-time consultant.
But in the end, the Army is too much under his skin to take off the uniform.
In early May, Rieman decided to join the National Guard, even though he knows that means he’s likely to head back to Iraq once his guaranteed stabilization period expires.
By Lisa Burgess
Stars and Stripes
The Silver Star is the third highest U.S. combat-only award. Established in 1918 as the Citation Star, in 1932 a provision allowed servicemen to receive it retroactively. It has been awarded for actions as far back as the Spanish-American War.
'After I threw that first grenade, it got pretty quiet'
Silver Star
earned
12.2.03
while serving with
Echo Company, 51st Long Range Surveillance
The Silver Star and Purple Heart Army Sgt. Tommy Rieman wear are for helping his patrol survive an ambush in a very bad Iraq neighborhood called Abu Ghraib.
Insurgents attacked the eight members of Echo Company, 51st Long Range Surveillance, just a few miles outside the gates of the Abu Ghraib prison, Rieman said.
That night, Dec. 3, 2003, the LRS team had been anticipating a routine mission, Rieman told Stripes in an interview at the Pentagon, where he works in the Army’s personnel division.
It was going to be 12 or 14 boring hours of sitting very quietly in a well-concealed position, keeping eyes on a suspected insurgent’s front door and collecting information on who was coming and going.
Because he knew the area better than the team’s official leader, Rieman was guiding the group on its way to the place where they would hide the Humvees.
He was in the driver’s seat of his Humvee, holding his flashlight in one hand and using it to peer at the map awkwardly unfolded in his other hand, when the air around him exploded.
Three rocket-propelled grenades crisscrossed the convoy’s path. Two just barely missed the vehicles, but one struck a soldier manning the gun in the back of the third truck, Sgt. Bruce Robinson, literally cutting his right leg out from beneath him.
Beneath Rieman’s vehicle, or near it (it was too confusing for him to tell), a bomb exploded. Two more went off at the same time.
Rieman was briefly deafened by the noise of the fusillade, which seemed to come from everywhere at once. U.S. troops later found 10 dug-in positions along the roadside.
Rieman’s gunner, Spc. Robert Macallister, cried out that he had been shot in the butt. Rieman was shot twice, where his vest didn’t offer protection: in the chest under his right arm, and across it. He also took shrapnel in his chest, stomach and ear.
But neither Rieman nor his gunner paid attention to their wounds. Rieman leaned back against the gunner, trying to shield as much of his legs as possible with his torso, and began firing back with his rifle, tossing some grenades for good measure. The gunner started hitting the trigger on the .50-caliber machine gun in the roof turret ring for all he was worth.
The tiny convoy sped out of the kill zone and stopped in a clearing about 2 miles down the road to deal with the wounded.
Rieman staggered out of his truck, blood running down his uniform. Ignoring cries from other soldiers to sit down, he started to make his way back to the truck to see how Robinson was doing. Not well — he was bleeding out from the gaping hole where his leg had been and in danger of dying. Immediate air evacuation was called.
Rieman started setting up a defensive perimeter so the choppers could land.
Suddenly, the group of stunned and bleeding soldiers began taking a huge volume of fire again, from the cover of some palm trees. U.S. troops scouting the area later estimated that at least 50 insurgents were positioned there for the second round of the ambush.
As the hail of bullets began again, Rieman saw red.
“I wasn’t scared, I was [angry]” during the original ambush, he said. “I couldn’t believe they had actually gone up against us in the first place.”
Now, the enemy was keeping the Americans from helping their dying friends.
“Oh no you will NOT,” he roared, whether in his head or vocally, he doesn’t know.
But by this point, the Americans had expended almost all of their ammunition. They were prepared for emergencies. They weren’t prepared for a war.
But there was one weapon Rieman hadn’t expended yet: he still had well over a dozen 40 mm grenades, looped neatly in their little holders on his combat vest and sagging the bottoms of his cargo pants.
“I was screaming at them,” as he ripped those grenades from his vest and his pockets and stuffed them into the M2-3 grenade launcher, yanking back the trigger and firing one after another at the palm grove, until the barrel on the gun was red-hot.
What was he yelling?
“I don’t like to say,” Rieman said. “It was curse words. Bad stuff.”
Were they yelling back?
“No. After I threw that first grenade, it got pretty quiet.”
The firing from the palm grove had stopped. The medical evacuation choppers were able to land.
Sgt. Bruce Robinson ended up losing his left leg, as well as his right, but he survived, thanks in part to some amazing surgery performed by Air Force doctors in flight from Iraq to Landstuhl in Germany, Rieman said.
Now that he has a wife and a young son, Rieman decided to leave active duty and work with America’s Army, an outreach and recruiting project, as a full-time consultant.
But in the end, the Army is too much under his skin to take off the uniform.
In early May, Rieman decided to join the National Guard, even though he knows that means he’s likely to head back to Iraq once his guaranteed stabilization period expires.
By Lisa Burgess
Stars and Stripes