Three airmen who were injured in a deadly drone attack on a U.S. military base in Jordan earlier this year were recently awarded Purple Hearts, the Air Force recently announced.
Air Force Staff Sgt. Michael Byrne, Senior Airman Herland Antezana, and Staff Sgt. Dustin Dinkelacker received the award during an Oct. 5 ceremony at Moffett Air National Guard Base in California. All three airmen are assigned to the 129th Rescue Wing.
“I hope you all wear this with great pride and honor,” said Maj. Gen. Steven Butow, commander of the California Air National Guard, who pinned the Purple Hearts on the three airmen during the ceremony.
Byrne, Antezana and Dinkelacker were among 41 National Guardsmen who were injured in the Jan. 28 drone attack on the base, known as Tower 22. Three Army Reserve soldiers were killed in the attack: Sgt. Kennedy L. Sanders, Sgt. Breonna Moffett, and Staff Sgt. William Rivers.
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All three airmen lost consciousness from the blast. As soon as they came to, they started banging on doors warning others that another attack was possible and then they ran to a bunker.
“We ran into the center of where it happened,” Byrne said in the Air Force news release. “At that point we realized this isn’t a training thing. This is real life.”
After they arrived in the bunker, the three airmen started helping other service members. They worked together to make sure wounded troops got medical attention, and they began to evacuate the casualties.
“There were people that took charge that wouldn’t normally be in a supervisor role and gave out direct orders on what needed to get done and it happened,” Byrne said. “The people that were there did such an amazing job.”
The airmen went door to door, extinguished fires, and looked through the rubble for other injured service members. It was only after the situation began to stabilize that they sought medical help for their own injuries.
“That’s when we realized what impact the UAV made on us, when the adrenaline started coming down,” Antezana said, referring to the unmanned aerial vehicle used in the strike. “We weren’t feeling well at that point.”
All three airmen were treated for their injuries and continued with their deployment until returning home in May.
U.S. military officials have blamed Iranian-backed groups for the Tower 22 attack. Army Maj. Gen. Joel “JB” Vowell, then serving as commander of all U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, told Task & Purpose in June that the attack was part of a strategy by Iran’s proxies to inflict enough casualties on American forces in the Middle East to force the United States to withdraw from the region.
In the aftermath of the Tower 22 attack, U.S. and partner nation troops added more defenses against drone attacks, Vowell said in an exclusive interview with Task & Purpose.
“We leveled the field with force protection,” Vowell said. “We dug a lot more earth. We poured a lot more concrete. We went back to school on ourselves: Where are we still holding risk that’s just unacceptable?”
Vowell said he felt it is personally important to remember the soldiers he’s lost under his command. He recalled speaking to the families of the three soldiers killed at Tower 22 after the attack.
“I called their families — all three, great families, great people, great Americans — to express our sincere condolences for their loss and the sacrifice,” Vowell said. “What they were doing there was trying to do something to help us continue the ISIS fight in Syria. And, so we remember that. We don’t want to forget. We can’t forget.”
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