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These crew received these medal from their actions during combat operations east of Balad, Iraq, Jan. 16. Lt. Col. James H. Bradley Jr. received the Silver Star Medal and Chief Warrant Officer Lyndle Ratliff received the Distinguished Flying Cross. Chief Warrant Officer James Howe, Chief Warrant Officer Joseph Henry, Sgt. Paul Perdock, Sgt. Fredrick Benuzzi, Spc. Kenneth Steinmetz, and Spc. Jacob Norotsky received the Air Medal with Valor. Bradley and his crews distinguished themselves while conducting an air assault, and an insertion of an aerial reaction force. After infiltration, the ground troops began taking casualties from enemy fire. Bradley realized the supporting Apache gunships could not engage the enemy because they were so close to friendly forces. He immediately directed an assault of the insurgents' position to allow the reaction force to withdraw. Bradley and Henry began a series of low, sweeping passes to clearly identify enemy and friendly positions. Ratliff and Howe laid down suppressing fire while the door gunners engaged the enemy with machine gun fire. Despite receiving enemy fire to the cockpit and the rest of his aircraft, Ratliff and Howe engaging the enemy. The two crews also hovered close to the enemy to allow the door gunners to better engage enemy forces. Bradley and his crew made three deliberately slow passes under heavy enemy fire, expending all his ammunition and killing or injuring most of the enemy in their ambush position. Even though the door gunners where out of ammunition, the two teams remained over the besieged troops exposing their aircraft -- hoping to draw enemy fire away from the reaction force Soldiers. Because of their concentrated fire at close range and continuous low slow passes to draw enemy fire, the reaction force was able to withdraw out of the ambush for extraction and casualty evacuation. "Let me tell you, I've seen the overhead film of the fight, and I walked the ground of the fight, and had it not been for those two aircrews, there would have been several more memories of Soldiers who didn't make it through that day," said Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, the commanding general of Multi-National Division - North. "But when you talk about the heroism of the people we just awarded, it's just unbelievable. As I walked through that line, and looked in the eyes of each one of these Soldiers, all I saw was humility." ADDITIONAL PHOTOS:
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