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| Afghanistan |
| Civilian Contractors Receive Medal of Valor for Actions in Afghanistan |
| 2018-08-16 |
| [DOD] WASHINGTON - Three retired soldiers were honored at the Pentagon yesterday for exceptional gallantry in action against an armed enemy while serving in Afghanistan as civilian contractors. Retired Army Master Sgt. William Timothy Nix, retired Army Chief Warrant Officer Michael Anthony Dunne and retired Army Chief Warrant Officer Brandon Ray Seabolt received the Medal of Valor, the Defense Department’s highest civilian award for valor. Nix was working as a civilian contractor at a coalition base in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 7, 2015, when he heard the massive boom of a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. "I just grabbed a weapon and ran out," Nix said. Insurgents had breached the entrance at Camp Integrity, launching the deadly attack with a vehicle-borne IED and then using direct fire, hand grenades and suicide vests. Nix and Dunne, a fellow contractor, rushed to the fight, teaming up with military personnel to defend the camp, suppress the enemy and evacuate the wounded. "[The insurgents] blew the whole front of the camp. The gate came off. It collapsed the guard tower out there," Dunne said, recalling that a suicide vest exploded 30 feet away from him. He thought he would die, he said, but he kept fighting. Nix was serving as an irregular warfare analyst for the NATO Special Operations Component Command Afghanistan in support of the Resolute Support mission. Dunne was an operations intelligence integrator there. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |