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President Joe Biden on Thursday awarded the Medal of Honor — the country’s highest military award for valor — to three U.S. soldiers for their conspicuous gallantry in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The soldiers are Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Celiz, an Army Ranger who died after stepping between Taliban fighters and a U.S. helicopter evacuating wounded in 2018; Master Sgt. Earl Plumlee, a Special Forces soldier who fought off Taliban insurgents after massive attack in Afghanistan in 2013; and Sgt. 1st Class Alwyn Cashe, 35, who suffered fatal injuries in Iraq while rescuing fellow soldiers from a burning vehicle in 2005.
Cashe, who died on Oct. 17, 2005, after saving his men from a burning vehicle in Iraq, is the first Black servicemember to receive the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War, according to the White House.
He received the honor posthumously “for his acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty,” the White House said in a release.
While on a nighttime patrol in October of 2005, the vehicle Cashe was commanding was attacked by insurgents — an improvised explosive device disabled the vehicle and engulfed it in flames. Despite suffering severe second and third degree burns, Cashe aided his fellow troops in escaping the burning vehicle, and refused medical evacuation until the other wounded soldiers were evacuated — at the cost of his own life.
His widow, Tamara Cashe, accepted the award on his behalf.
Celiz also received the honor posthumously for his service in Afghanistan — according to the U.S. Army, he used his body to shield his team, as well as a wounded ally, from enemy gunfire in Paktia Province, Afghanistan in July of 2018.
“When a large enemy force attacked, Sergeant First Class Celiz voluntarily exposed himself to intense enemy machine gun and small arms fire to retrieve and employ a heavy weapon system, thereby allowing U.S. and partnered forces to regain the initiative, maneuver to a secure location and begin treatment of a critically wounded partnered force member,” the White House said in a release.
His widow, Katie Celiz, accepted the medal on his behalf.
Plumlee received the honor “for his acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty” when he engaged insurgents at a U.S. base near Ghazni, Afghanistan on Aug. 28, 2013.
Plumlee was serving at a base in Ghazni, Afghanistan, when it came under massive attack, with insurgents blowing a sixty-foot breach in the base’s perimeter wall.
He killed two insurgents, one with a well-placed grenade and the other by using precision sniper fire to detonate the insurgent’s suicide vest. He engaged several others at close range.
He is currently serving with the 1st Special Forces Group at Fort Lewis, Washington.
