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Capt. Kyle Walton (right) and Master Sgt. Scott Ford talk to an Afghani interpreter. The soldiers received Silver Stars.
Morales |
BY RUSTY DENNEN
Luis Morales will always remember April 6, 2008--a terrifying and bloody day that forever changed his life, and the lives of some of his buddies.
Morales, a Green Beret and sergeant first class in Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha 3336, who grew up in the Fredericksburg area, yesterday received a Silver Star for valor at Fort Bragg, N.C., for his actions that morning. Nine others involved in the battle also received the decoration--the most ever for a unit in Afghanistan.
Just after dawn that day, the 31-year-old Morales said, his unit of 12 men and several Afghan interpreters headed into the Shok Valley, an insurgent stronghold in Afghanistan's Nuristan Province.
The objective of Operation Commando Wrath was to kill or capture members of the Hezeb Islami al Gulbadin terrorist group.
Helicopters dropped three teams with the 3rd Special Forces Group, and Afghan commandos, below a village. The men--each carrying 30 to 60 pounds of gear--spread out and started making their way up a rocky, steep ridge.
"I saw four guys with weapons running on the elevation above us," Morales said in a telephone interview this week from the apartment at Fort Bragg where he now lives with his wife, Kathryne.
He opened fire, killing one of them. Then a large group of insurgents in the village shot back with rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
Next to Morales was Staff Sgt. Dillon Behr, who fell to the ground. Behr was hit in the leg and the arm.
As bullets whizzed past, "The captain [Kyle Walton] and I dragged him back about 30 feet" to a more sheltered area, Morales said.
"I did buddy aid on Sgt. Behr," Morales recalled, trying to focus on the crisis at hand. "The bullet had shattered the head of his femur. He was in a lot of pain." Morales kneeled on Behr's wound to stanch the bleeding.
As he was talking to Behr about the other wound, Morales was hit in his left thigh.
"I grabbed my leg and thought, 'This is what it feels like to get shot.' It was like a 10-pound sledgehammer hitting me, and it hurt," Morales said. Two other soldiers ran up to help get him and Behr to a more protected spot.
Then, in a moment observed by a combat camera man, Morales got hit again, in the ankle. The cameraman, who later visited him in the hospital, told Morales that he exclaimed, "Are you [expletive] kidding me?"
The whole time, Morales said, "I thought about trying to find a better position, and how to get the team out of the situation." Though he was losing blood, "It was no time to lose composure or for freaking out."
A medic came to their aid and, still under fire, they made it down the hill and were evacuated.
During the 61/2-hour battle, four men in his group--Morales, Behr of Rock Island, Ill., Staff Sgt. John Walding of Groesbeck, Texas, and Master Sgt. Scott Ford of Athens, Ohio--were wounded. Walding lost his leg. An Afghan interpreter was killed.
The Army estimated there were about 200 enemy fighters.
Morales spent three months recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and only two weeks ago finished outpatient treatment.
"I had a big hole in my ankle. They took skin and an artery from the back of my calf. I had a lot of cartilage damage, and there's bone on bone with my ankle. I'm in pain all day," Morales said.
"I give the example of House on TV," he said of the doctor on the Fox medical drama. "He can walk with a cane, but he's in pain. That's what it feels like for me."
Morales plans to stay in the military, continuing his work with Special Forces.
"As the war in Afghanistan and Iraq has continued, more jobs are being created for wounded warriors, so that they can stay in the military if they want to," he said.
As for receiving the Silver Star, "It's a humbling experience and honor. I am just one guy doing my duty."
Rusty Dennen: 540/374-5431
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com
An Army brat, Sgt. 1st Class Luis G. Morales was born He and his wife lived in Lee's Hill North for three years, then he joined the Army and spent six years with the 1st Ranger Battalion in Savannah, Ga., and became a Special Forces intelligence sergeant. His in-laws |
The Silver Star is the third-highest decoration in the U.S. military. It is awarded
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