We salute these unsung heroes of 2020

As this roller coaster of a year comes to an end, we here at Task & Purpose wanted to take a moment to acknowledge some — there’s not enough time or space on the page for all — of the unsung heroes out there in the military and veterans community.

Some of their actions can only be described as breathtakingly heroic, like the Marine who raced to pull an infant from a burning car or the injured Special Forces surgeon who patched up his friend as well as the motorcyclists that collided with him on the road. Others are unquestionably badass, like the Coast Guardsman who warded off an 8-foot shark with a few short bursts of his M4 as it crashed a swim call out at sea. 

Others are less unsung but deserve a final shout-out just the same, like Capt. Brett Crozier, who garnered national media attention and (most importantly) earned the respect of his crew for pushing back on the Navy’s handling of a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak on the USS Theodore Roosevelt — even though it cost him his command. That whole debacle also led to a shitstorm of other headlines, and the ouster of then-acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly.

And then, of course, there are my personal favorites: The belligerent heroes. Not the heroes your CO and Sergeant Major want, but the ones they deserve. Oh, those brave salty few giving their command ‘what for’ through brutal meme warfare. Those quiet working-class heroes with the dopest (and least safe for work) tank names. The E-4 mafia, the lance corporal underground, the camouflaged rebels without a cause. You who are about to be NJP’d, we salute you.

Without further ado, here’s a round-up of Task & Purpose stories highlighting some of the unsung heroes of 2020:

Badassery

• The Air Force chief who smoked turkeys and bought Rockstars for his airmen when the commissary ran out
• The USS Indiana for flying this badass battle flag on its way back to port
• The badass Coastie who opened fire on a friggin’ shark that crashed his crew’s swim call
• The guy who turned his riding lawnmower into a tank named ‘COVID Killer’
• ‘The Dude’ for being ‘the coolest military working dog ever’
• The Army crew who named their howitzer ‘coronavirus’
• The USS America for rocking a Captain America flag at sea
• The Air Force girlfriend with a ‘BRRRT’ jacket at an A-10 pilot’s homecoming
• The Air Force tech sergeant who moonlights as a Star Wars bounty hunter for charity
• This airman created an outrageously realistic ‘Iron Man’ suit
• The Australian navy for executing an emergency beer run amid the country’s devastating brushfires
• The all-women Air Force team that crushed a weapons loading competition dressed as Rosie the Riveter

Heroism

• ‘I don’t think I’m special’ says Marine who rescued a baby from a burning car
• Special Forces doctor awarded for saving lives despite his own injuries following a motorcycle accident
• ‘I knew I needed to do something’ — Airman awarded for braving rocket fire to treat wounded during Camp Taji attack
• The Marine who saved an elderly woman’s life after she was bitten by a Habu viper
• The Marine Corps infantryman who rescued an infant from a burning car
• The Army medic who performed life-saving CPR on a stranger at Walmart
• These Marines saved the lives of a woman trapped underneath a car
• The Army Black Hawk crew who saved a child from hurricane floodwaters in Honduras
• This Marine vet caught a 3-year-old who was dropped from a burning building
• These Army recruiters dropped everything to respond to a car crash outside their office
• The Army recruiter who saved two people in Alaska this year
• This Marine rushed to aid an injured police officer after a motorcycle wreck

Belligerence

• Meet ‘Veteran With A Sign,’ the Marine grunt who became a meme philosopher
• The airmen who went full Ricky Bobby on the flight line in Saudi Arabia
• These airmen marched aboard a C-17 while dressed as minions from ‘Despicable Me’
• An Army crew that named their tank ‘Barbie Dreamhouse’
• A different Army crew named theirs ‘crippling depression’
• Whoever made Steve Carell head of Space Force at the Air Force museum
• These mustachioed A-10s (and their pilots) made close air support classy as f—
• The Army crew that named their tank ‘Baby Yoda’