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Green Beret Rewarded for Heroism on Highway

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Brave sgt

By Debbie Gregory.

There was no time to wait for emergency personnel or to see if others on the highway would stop.

“We were the first there,” he said. “It was my responsibility.”

While his wife called 9-1-1, he ran to the wreckage and went to work.

“I just did all I could do,” he said.

Thus unfolded the events of October 10, 2016 when a single vehicle accident west of Asheboro, NC claimed two lives. But due to the actions of a brave Fort Bragg Green Beret, two lives were saved.

Staff Sergeant Adams, a member of 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group sprang into action without regard for his personal safety. To protect Adams’ identity, only his last name has been used.

Adams pulled Lillie Mingin, 33, and her surviving son, 7-year-old Eric, from the wreckage. Army officials said the pair likely would not have lived were it not for Adams, who rescued them from the vehicle and provided lifesaving medical care.

The Special Forces soldier has now been awarded the Soldier’s Medal, the Army’s highest award for heroism outside of combat. The Soldier’s Medal requires that a soldier do more than save a life. The soldier also must voluntarily risk his own life to save others.

During the ceremony at Fort Bragg, Adams’ heroism was celebrated by more than 100 Special Forces soldiers and members of his family.

Front passenger seat, Brittany Goodman, 26, was ejected from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene. Mingin’s 12-year-old son, Colby Springle, died shortly after the crash. The accident report quoted witnesses as saying Mingin was not speeding at the time of the accident, thus speeding is not suspected as being a factor.

“It takes a special person to do what he did,” said Army Maj. Crocker, acting commander of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group.

“Staff Sgt. Adams saw four of his fellow human beings in desperate need of help,” Crocker said. “And in trying to save them, proved that the Army’s “capacity to do good in this world is not limited to the battlefield.”

And that is what a hero does.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

What Are Some of The Worst Duty Assignments?

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twentynine

By Debbie Gregory.

One thing holds true above all others in the military: You can choose your branch, but you can’t choose your duty station.

There are two kinds of duty stations: those that come ready-made and those you “make the most of.” After taking into consideration weather, morale, base amenities, stuff to do, and accessibility to major cities, it seems that some of our military’s most heroic acts of service might not be fighting battles abroad, but bravely conquering the duty stations at home.

Duty assignments are a crapshoot, and here are the losing rolls:

Army: Fort Polk, Louisiana- Most blame the misery on the humidity, the presence of every bug you can think of, or the fact that chain gangs are not at all uncommon in this swampy, far-from-everything town. The nearest towns are more than an hour away, and the nearest place you would actually want to go to is New Orleans, about a four hour drive. It is hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and the humidity!

Fort Bragg, or “Fort Drag” as it is commonly referred to, also scores low on the list. Soldiers insist that the place reminds them of every combat zone the U.S. has visited in the past four decades.

Navy: NAS Lemoore, CA- The Navy thinks that Lemoore is a “hidden gem” with an image problem. But when everyone, including civilian residents refer to it as an “armpit” and the biggest selling point is Fresno, CA… an it is regularly ranked among the nation’s worst for air pollution.

Air Force: Cannon AFB, NM- Giant insects. Cow dung. Old houses. Locals who loathe the military. Above national average crime problem. Gang issues. Drug traffic from Mexico. Keep going? I though not.

Minot AFB, ND- The missile base is located in a desolate region of the least-populated, most-rural, least-visited state in America, with winter temperatures in the low teens. And cows outnumber people three to one.

Marine Corps: Twentynine Palms, CA- Marines call ‘The Stumps’ the place for the best training and arguably the worst social life. Not that bad if you like being in the middle of a vast desert. If you like dirt bikes or atv’s you’ll love it there. But you either freeze or boil. Life improves if you have a car and can travel to Joshua Tree, Big Bear or San Diego.

Coast Guard: By most accounts, the Coast Guard doesn’t seem to have a bad duty station.

Band of Brothers in on Gender Reveal for Fallen Soldier

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gender

By Debbie Gregory.

The wife of a Fort Bragg soldier who was killed in Afghanistan in August had a lot of help when it came time to reveal the gender of the baby she is expecting in March.

Brittany Harris, pregnant with the couple’s first child, called upon her late husband’s band of brothers to pull the popper and reveal a sea of pink confetti. The men of the 82nd’s 2nd Battalion, 504th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team couldn’t have been happier.
On August 2nd , Spc. Chris Harris died in Afghanistan, one of two soldiers from Fort Bragg’s 82nd Airborne killed when an IED struck their convoy near Kandahar.

Earlier this month, Harris’ brother soldiers, who are still deployed downrange, posted a video welcoming  Christian Michelle Harris to the company, as soon as she arrives.

Pfc. Joel Crunk, who served with Harris, posted the video to his YouTube account. “August 2 2017 Chris Harris laid down his life for our country. His newly wed wife was expecting their first child,” Crunk wrote. “The reveal is in Afghanistan with the men who fought by his side. We are happy to welcome the new member of our company.”

“Spc. Christopher Harris was an extraordinary young man and a phenomenal Paratrooper,” said Col. Toby Magsig, commander of the 1st Brigade Combat team.

Harris joined the Army in Oct. 2013, and was killed, along with Sgt. Jonathon Hunter, on their first deployment.

Brittany said, “Everyone that I’ve met, before Chris passed and after, if they’re in the military, they’ve treated me like actual family or royalty, actually.”

Christopher Michael Harris’ daughter, Christian Michelle, will have no shortage of “uncles” who will always have her six.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Calling All Doctors!

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army medical command

By Debbie Gregory.

The Army Wants You!  The United States Army Medical Command is aggressively recruiting physicians and reaching out to medical schools.   The Army Medical Command has used the online recruitment advertising services of MilitaryConnection.com in the past.   One of our major areas of focus is healthcare recruitment including doctors and psychiatrists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, nurses, and all types of allied healthcare professionals.

Military Connection has been named a Top 100 Employment Web Site for six years and is well respected within the military and veteran communities.   We have a significant reach with robust traffic, a database of hundreds of thousands of emails and almost 700,000 combined fans and followers on social media.  We offer many effective online recruitment advertising options for both civilian healthcare professionals and military healthcare professionals.

The Army offers the opportunity to not only serve your nation with critical life-saving skills across the globe, but also outstanding benefits.   One benefit may include the opportunity to get out from under student loans.   With medical school being so expensive, this potential benefit holds a great deal of appeal to doctors and medical students alike.

For more adventurous doctors, the Army offers the opportunity for adrenaline-seeking surgeons to jump out of an aircraft and perform surgeries in the middle of a combat zone.

Army leaders are encouraging premedical school students and medical residents to consider careers in the Army. There are more than 90 medical concentrations in the Army, including trauma life support, head and neck specialists, and preventative medicine.

Fort Bragg’s 44th Medical Brigade is a small surgical team that has the ability to mobilize and deploy within 18 hours.

They can perform as many as 30 surgeries in three days.

The Army allows greater career diversity, including research opportunities, said Lt. Col. Kevin Smith of the 2nd Medical Recruiting Battalion.

Smith emphasized that the active-duty component needs emergency physicians, family medicine physicians, general surgeons and psychiatrists.

“You can’t always evacuate a soldier, Smith said. “You need to be able to treat them on the battlefield.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Army Ranger Killed in Mosul

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lee

By Debbie Gregory.

An improvised explosive device that detonated during a patrol on the outskirts of Mosul claimed the life of U.S. Army soldier 1st Lt. Weston Lee.

The 25-year-old infantry platoon leader was from Bluffton, Ga., was assigned to 1st Battalion, 325th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, at Fort Bragg, N.C.

According to a DoD press release, the Georgia native joined the Army in March 2015, and was killed “while conducting security as part of advise and assist support to partnered forces.”

It was his first combat deployment.

Lee’s death marks the first time an 82nd Airborne paratrooper has been killed in combat since 2014. He was also the first member of the division killed in Iraq since 2011, the year the U.S. formally withdrew all combat troops from the country.

There are now more U.S. forces in Iraq than at any other time since the 2011 U.S. withdrawal, marking an intensifying war as Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition work to push ISIS out of the last pockets of territory the extremists control in Iraq.

Lieutenant Lee, who has been stationed at Fort Benning since March of 2015, graduated from the University of North Georgia and commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the United States Army in December of 2014. While at Fort Benning, he completed the Infantry Basic Officer’s Leadership Course prior to Ranger and Airborne schools. He has recently been assigned to 1-73 CAV, 82nd. Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Lee was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Meritorious Service Medal.

“He was exactly the type of leader that our paratroopers deserve,” Col. J. Patrick Work, the 2nd Brigade commander, wrote in a statement to reporters.

We at Military Connection express our sincerest condolences to Lee’s family and friends, and express our gratitude for his service and sacrifice.


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