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Heroics on two other days earned Silver Stars for ‘Deuce Four’

Nov- 6-2005 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT

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Silver Star goes to Stryker soldiers tested in Iraq

MICHAEL GILBERT

Massive truck bomb had turned much of the Fort Lewis soldiers’ outpost to rubble. One of their own lay dying and many others wounded.

Some 50 al-Qaida fighters were attacking from several directions with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

It was obvious that the insurgents had come to drive the platoon of Stryker brigade troops out of Combat Outpost Tampa, a four-story concrete building overlooking a major highway through western Mosul, Iraq.

“It crossed my mind that that might be what they were going to try to do,” recalled Staff Sgt. Robert Bernsten, one of 40 soldiers at the outpost that day.

“But I wasn’t going to let that happen, and looking around I could tell nobody else in 2nd platoon was going to let that happen, either.”

He and 10 other soldiers from the same unit – the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment – would later be decorated for their valor on this day of reckoning, Dec. 29, 2004.

Three were awarded the Silver Star, the Army’s third-highest award for heroism in combat.

When you combine those medals with two other Silver Star recipients involved in different engagements, the battalion known as “Deuce Four” stands in elite company. [...]

The Stryker brigade infantry battalion known as “Deuce Four” had five Silver Star and 26 Bronze Star for valor recipients during its year in Iraq.

Silver Star

Maj. Mark Bieger

Staff Sgt. Wesley Holt

Staff Sgt. Shannon Kay

Sgt. Joseph Martin

Command Sgt. Maj. Robert Prosser

Bronze Star for valor

Staff Sgt. Richard Bernsten

Lt. John Bourque

Pfc. Joseph Bourne

Sgt. 1st Class Robert Bowman

Spc. Dennis Burke

Sgt. David Carlton

Sgt. Sebastian Chrzanowski

Spc. Henry Flanagan

Sgt. Roy Freeman

Spc. Mark Fuerbringer

Sgt. Nicholas Furfari

Sgt. 1st Class Mark Gallegos

Sgt. 1st Class Eugene Hicks

Sgt. Brandon Huff

Sgt. Christopher Manikowski

Sgt. 1st Class David McDaniel

Sgt. Ryan Mitchell

Sgt. Benjamin Morton*

Lt. Raub Nash

Spc. Jason Okon

Sgt. Adam Plumondore*

Staff Sgt. Joseph Robeson

Lt. Jeremy Rockwell

Pfc. Oscar Sanchez*

Spc. Steven Sosa

Staff Sgt. Ofa Tali

* Awarded posthumously


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