Edward Byers, a Navy SEAL will receive the Medal of Honor from President Obama for rescuing an American doctor, who was held hostage in Afghanistan. Byer, a Chief Special Warfare Operator and a SEAL Team Six member, will be honored later this month.
Edward Byers, a Navy SEAL will be a Medal of Honor recipient on February 29. President Barack Obama will honor Byers in front of his family at the White House with a special ceremony.
Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Byers, a member of the elite Navy’s Special Warfare Development Group, better known as SEAL Team Six, took part in a rescue mission in 2012 in Afghanistan where one American service member was killed.
Byers and his team were able to save Dr. Dilip Joseph and several staff members of the nonprofit agency, Morning Star Development. According to documents released by then-U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, it was revealed that Byers was the second serviceman to enter the Taliban compound hidden in the Afghan mountains.
The first member, forward-most SEAL, Petty Officer 1st Class Nicolas Checque, who stepped foot in the compound, was “immediately shot in the head by enemy AK-47 fire.” The unclassified documents revealed that:
“Byers immediately engaged a guard in a firefight and managed to tackle another guard, subduing him by way of hand-to-hand combat.”
The report went on to say:
“When the other rescue team members asked Joseph to identify himself, Byers heard an unknown voice speaking English and immediately leaped across the room and selflessly flung his body on top of the American hostage, shielding him from the continued rounds being fired across the room.”
The report also stated:
“that while shielding Joseph with his body, Byers engaged another insurgent and was able to pin the enemy combatant to the wall with his hand around the enemy’s throat until the other members of the team could fire precision shots to take out the final enemy guard.”
To save Checque, Byers, a certified paramedic performed CPR during the 40-minute flight to Bagram Airfield. Five Taliban fighters along with Checque were killed during the operation. Byers will be the sixth Navy SEALs and the first sailor since 1998 to receive the Medal of Honor.
I think the government has cheapened the meaning behind the Congressional Medal. The appropriate medal should have been the Silver Star. The Congressional Medal was given to those whose sacrifice was of strategic significance along with the other selfless attributes such as given to a Silver Star recipient. There were many heroes in all of our past wars but very few whose action had significant strategic implications. Very few ever received this nations highest medal until the present admin. started handing them out like candy.
So many people, journalists, politicos etc persist in calling the Medal of Honor, the “Congressional” Medal of Honor. It is not the “Congressional” it is just the “Medal of Honor.” Congress passed the law but it is not correctly or officially called the “Congressional”….