Six Soldiers belonging to C Troop, 1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, recently received the Soldier’s Medal during a ceremony at McAuliffe Hall, the division headquarters.
Staff sergeants Beau Corder, Richard Weaver, Engel Becker; Sgt. Damon Seals; Spc. Christopher White; and Pfc. Ryan Brisson were recognized Nov. 28 by Gen. Mark A. Milley, Army chief of staff, for their heroic actions following a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crash, Jan. 31, on Fort Campbell.
“I’m very humbled to be a part of this,” Milley said. “I’ve been in the Army for 40 years and I’ve only seen a few Soldier’s Medals. It’s a very rare thing. What you [Soldiers] did took tremendous courage. You knew it was very likely you would be hurt yourself, but you did it anyway. You make anyone who has been associated with the 101st enormously proud.”
The aircraft, flown by four crew members from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st Abn. Div., crashed into a forest on the installation shortly after takeoff. According to eyewitness accounts, the location of the crash, and the fact that the aircraft suffered major fuselage damage and was inverted, created a complex scene.
“The way it landed upside down in the ravine made it very difficult to access the crew. It also began to catch fire very quickly,” said 1st Sgt. Adolfo Dominguez, C Troop, 1st Sqdn., 32nd Cav. Regt., senior enlisted leader. “The whole experience opened our eyes that these emergencies can happen. But it was amazing to see the Soldiers’ mentality of ‘I will do anything I have to do’ in order to save these pilots lives.”
A post-crash fire soon engulfed the aircraft wreckage in heavy smoke and flames. The responding Soldiers used water, fire extinguishers and soil to control the fire, allowing them to remove and treat three of the injured crewmembers. They then performed multiple immediate and inventive actions to remove the fourth trapped crew chief, ultimately freeing him from the still-burning wreckage.
Their actions were taken with full understanding of the significant risk to their own safety, and contributed directly to saving the lives of their fellow Soldiers that day.
“What this unit did, from the time the incident happened, was pure agility and pure instinct,” said Lt. Col. Adisa King, 1st Sqdn., 32nd Cav. Regt. commander. “It is what they do on a daily basis. When you know that your brother is down, nothing is going to stop you. We talk about leaving no Soldier behind, and they proved that. It didn’t matter what it took to get that crew and those pilots out, these Soldiers were going to do it.”
The Soldier’s Medal is the Army’s highest peacetime award for valor. According to Army Regulation 600-8-22, the directive that outlines military awards and decorations, the performance must have involved personal hazard or danger and the voluntary risk of life under conditions not involving conflict with an armed enemy.
Colonel Derek Thomson, 1st BCT commander, described the rarity of the Soldier’s Medal and described the actions taken by the Soldiers that day in January.
“It is given for bravery and valor in a noncombat situation, this award was created for exactly the kind of act these Soldiers performed,” Thomson said. “Very few are awarded each year. This is a remarkable recognition. These Soldiers knew they had only seconds to react as the aircraft became engulfed in flames. The fact that these six individuals stuck with it no matter what, putting the lives of others ahead of their own, is extremely special.”
The Soldiers recognized were happy to receive this notable commendation, but at the time of the incident it was the furthest thing from their minds.
“At first, none of us really thought about it. We were just happy that everyone survived,” Corder said. “We were just doing our job, we wanted to save them.”
Although six individual Soldiers received the medal, the entire unit responded to the crash.
“I’m happy to be receiving it, but it was a combined effort of everybody,” White said. “I don’t think I’m any more special than anyone else who was out there.”
In attendance at the ceremony were friends, Families and fellow Soldiers of the awardees. But one individual had an extremely close connection to the incident. Spc. Grant Long, 5th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, 101st CAB crew chief, was on-board the helicopter and injured in the incident. In a touching moment, Milley invited Long to help him pin the medals on the Soldiers who saved his life.
The six Soldier’s Medal recipients took time to share their personal accounts of the crash response and rescue.
Staff Sgt. Beau Corder
Corder sprinted to the crash site, he moved into intense flames and severe smoke to rescue the fourth and final crewman whose foot was pinned in between the collapsed engine and aircraft paneling.
“I was helping move one of the crew members out, and I looked back into the aircraft and realized that the fourth Soldier was actually stuck underneath the body of the aircraft,” he said. “His leg was lodged underneath the engine or transmission.”
Making the situation worse, the trapped Soldier’s position was directly adjacent to the fire, which was expanding with each passing minute. While only inches away from the flames and smoke, Corder crawled into the wreckage, put out the fire that was beginning to burn the crewman’s feet and attempted to pull him to safety.
“At first I tried to cut off his boots, but we saw that was going to take too long. We tried pushing on the body of the bird, that’s when the first explosion went off,” he said. “We kept pulling on his equipment, and used a truck to try and pull the engine off his legs. I could feel the fire getting closer, it was the hottest I’ve ever been.”
With the heat and smoke beginning to take its toll on other rescuers, Corder climbed on the aircraft and jumped on the paneling. A second explosion blew him off the aircraft, Corder immediately got back on his feet and on to the aircraft to continue. After repeated attempts, Corder’s efforts broke the paneling free, creating enough space for others to pull the trapped crewman out of the wreckage.
As a leader in the unit, and a leader during the rescue, Corder spoke extremely highly of his Soldiers.
“They’re prepared for anything,” he said. “I would go to war with them any day of the week. To see how Charlie Troop reacted, with zero hesitation, showed me that those guys can accomplish anything.”
Staff Sgt. Richard Weaver
As one of the first three Soldiers on the scene, Weaver moved the flames and smoke, and immediately took control of the initial rescue efforts and treatment of three crew members. He then assisted others in multiple attempts to remove the fourth trapped crew chief.
“By then flames had really begun to engulf the aircraft, and everyone was getting worried that we wouldn’t get the Soldier out,” Weaver said. “It was very intense at that point.”
Ultimately, Weaver tied together personal safety lines that enabled the rescue team to pull the crew chiefs free. Throughout the entire rescue process, Weaver, along with one other noncommissioned officer, controlled the area facing direct and dangerous conditions.
Staff Sgt. Engel Becker
Becker sprinted toward the crash site to begin command and control of the rescue operations. As he saw other Soldiers running to the crash site, he moved to the road and ensured the medics and ambulance were located in the best spot. Becker then ran to the crash site to rescue the crew. After removing three crew members and ensuring their safe transport to a waiting ambulance, he joined the efforts to remove the fourth trapped Soldier. Throughout the process, he controlled the rescue operation, oftentimes monitoring his own men, ensuring they were pulled away to recover from smoke inhalation.
Sgt. Damon Seals
“We heard a loud pop and saw the Black Hawk falling, and we immediately began running toward the scene,” Seals said. “We came over a berm and saw the helicopter flipped over and the fire had already started.”
As one of the first three Soldiers on the scene, Seals moved into the crash site to rescue the crew. He and two other Soldiers safely treated two injured members of the flight crew and moved them away from danger.
“From my point of view I remember the fire was extremely hot,” he said. “It was scary to see how hot it was and how close the fourth guy was. I didn’t realize just how dangerous this was until the first explosion, which knocked me to the ground.”
While more Soldiers arrived to help rescue the final trapped crew chief, Seals and one other Soldier, moved to the right side crew chief, who was already outside the wreckage, and carried him 50 meters to the ambulance. Seals also played a vital role in controlling the scene and ensuring safety of all Soldiers as multiple rescue vehicles moved in and around the crash site.
Spc. Christopher White
As one of the first three Soldiers on the scene, he pulled out and moved three of the crewmen from the intense flames of the crash, ultimately saving their lives.
“All of a sudden we heard a loud crashing noise, I looked up to see the Black Hawk falling upside-down into the woods,” White said. “I ran down into the ravine and pulled the first crew member up and out of the wreckage. After that, I helped [Brisson] cut the seatbelt off another crew member who was trapped and hanging upside down.”
After assisting the first three crewmen, White joined efforts to free the fourth trapped crew chief. During this time, he realized the increasing danger to the injured crewmen still near the crash site. He and another Soldier moved them to safety. Throughout the rescue efforts, White braved the danger of explosions, symptoms of smoke inhalation and heat from the fire.
“The flames were the last thing on my mind, the whole time I just thought that these were my brothers in the bird and we needed to get them out,” White said.
Pfc. Ryan Brisson
Only seconds behind the first Soldiers on the scene, Brisson moved to the crash site to rescue the crew. First, he moved to the right side pilot who was in pain and stuck upside down with his harness still on. Brisson immediately pulled out his Gerber tool, cut the pilot’s harness, and with the assistance of others, pulled him from the aircraft.
While braving dangerous conditions, Brisson quickly moved to the left side crew chief, who, was stuck in his harness, and also cut him free. This crew chief dropped to the ground but was not completely free because his foot was pinned between the collapsed engine and aircraft paneling, only inches from the expanding fire. During this initial attempt to recover the crew chief, Brisson was mere feet from the flames and had been breathing in heavy smoke.
“The second Soldier was also trapped, and I could see the flames were nearing his back,” he said. “I just acted on instinct, when I saw he was in pain. I wasn’t thinking about how dangerous it was, I just thought if it was me I hope they would help get me out. I have a brother in the Army and I hope someone would help him out in a situation like that.”
He then joined the group effort to free the fourth trapped crew chief, by crawling into the burning wreckage to try and cut the boots off of the crew chief.