Veterans...Get the hell in here now!

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
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HURLBURT FIELD, Fla.--SSgt Johnathan Randall, a Special Operations Surgical Team member assigned to the 720th Operational Support Squadron, was awarded the Bronze Star Medal during a ceremony at Hurlburt Field, Florida May 20, 2020.

As a surgical technician assigned to a six-member SOST, Randall received the decoration for his actions providing tactical medical expertise at thirty-five austere casualty collection points supporting United States, coalition, and partner nation forces while deployed to U.S. Central Command from January through June of 2019.

“Humbling,” is the first word that comes to mind for Randall when receiving the decoration.

Although the rest of his team wasn’t able to attend the ceremony, their impact and contributions have had a lasting effect.

“When I first got to the unit, the team I deployed with were receiving Bronze Stars and I always felt I was standing on the shoulders of giants,” said Randall. “I was walking into a career field where the people are of such high caliber, doing things that were just unheard of in the medical field… to even stand beside them is a great feeling.”

Among the achievements considered for the medal included delivering expert surgical care for 644 combat casualties, assisting in 16 damage control surgeries, 46 resuscitations and 70 advanced procedures at the most forward point of combat operations.

“I am extremely proud of SSgt Randall and his team for the amazing work they did in support of Operation Inherent Resolve,” said. Lt. Col. James Webb, SOST director. “Damage control resuscitation and surgery are challenging even in the most ideal situations, but to perform at such a high level in the most extreme environments, hours forward of the closest hospitals is a testament to the mental and physical fortitude of him and his team.”

For Randall and his team there was one moment during the deployment that stood out. While staged forward during a counterattack that put the team in grave danger, his six-person team received, triaged, stabilized and evacuated 51 blast and gunshot wound casualties in the team’s largest mass casualty event all while under the constant threat of small arms and mortar fire.

The SOST’s efforts not only advanced battlefield objectives, but also helped strengthen the partnerships with foreign allies and coalition forces.

“We enable our allies to stay in the fight,” said Randall. “They know they have that American team that’s going to take care of them, we’re moving with them and we would be right there. They appreciated us and we appreciate them… we built a bond.”

SOST members are known for being dedicated to their craft, their team, their patients and the mission. When Randall entered the Air Force in 2012, he internalized that mentality with joining SOST as his end goal. Now reflecting on his first deployment, his outlook hasn’t changed.

“You learn to work together, you love eachother,” said Randall. “It’s surreal to be as effective as we are on a six-person team…It’s the dream job.”

Special Operations Surgical Teams fall under the 24th Special Operations Wing and are part of the Air Force Special Tactics enterprise conducting battlefield surgery to enable global access, precision strike and personnel recovery operations
 
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too larry

Well-Known Member
I believe that those who served without the uniform deserve consideration here. It is in the nature of intelligence work (field, analyst, other) that men and women did heroic, consequential work in darkness, and often gave their lives with no prospect of recognition or memory. Nobody knows how many wars they’ve stopped or diminished. I salute them.

Some spooks did wear the uniform. Before my wife was rich and famous she worked for a fellow who was in that line of work for the Rangers (in the reserves when she was working for him) He spent most of his time in Latin America. When I ask him about what they did, all he would say is, "there are no homicides during a hurricane."
 

too larry

Well-Known Member
"Veterans Affairs officials announced Monday they will remove a series of of grave markers bearing Nazi swastikas and tributes to Adolf Hitler from department cemeteries after lawmakers and veterans advocates complained the markers were offensive and disrespectful. The move represents a turnaround from last week, when VA Secretary Robert Wilkie said he was looking for ways to put the problematic grave markers “in historical context” rather than remove them from the cemeteries."

Sometimes the winds of change blow pretty hard.
 

doublejj

Well-Known Member
Veteran missing for a month found dead in stairwell at VA hospital
The body of a missing veteran was found in a stairwell on the campus of a Massachusetts VA hospital one month after he was reported missing.
The 62-year-old man was found dead in a building on the Bedford Veteran Affairs Hospital campus in Bedford on Friday by another resident, according to the Middlesex County District Attorney's office.
 

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
Today in Military History:

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Lieutenant Junior Grade Alexander Vraciu, USNR, Fighting Squadron 16 "ace", holds up six fingers to signify his "kills" during the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" on 19 June 1944. Taken on the flight deck of the USS Lexington (CV-16)

"On June 19, 1944, in what would become known as the “Marianas Turkey Shoot,” U.S. carrier-based fighters decimate the Japanese Fleet with only a minimum of losses in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

The security of the Marianas Islands, in the western Pacific, were vital to Japan, which had air bases on Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. U.S. troops were already battling the Japanese on Saipan, having landed there on the 15th. Any further intrusion would leave the Philippine Islands, and Japan itself, vulnerable to U.S. attack. The U.S. Fifth Fleet, commanded by Admiral Raymond Spruance, was on its way west from the Marshall Islands as backup for the invasion of Saipan and the rest of the Marianas. But Japanese Admiral Ozawa Jisaburo decided to challenge the American fleet, ordering 430 of his planes, launched from aircraft carriers, to attack. In what became the greatest carrier battle of the war, the United States, having already picked up the Japanese craft on radar, proceeded to shoot down more than 300 aircraft and sink two Japanese aircraft carriers, losing only 29 of their own planes in the process. It was described in the aftermath as a “turkey shoot.”

Admiral Ozawa, believing his missing planes had landed at their Guam air base, maintained his position in the Philippine Sea, allowing for a second attack of U.S. carrier-based fighter planes, this time commanded by Admiral Mitscher, to shoot down an additional 65 Japanese planes and sink another carrier. In total, the Japanese lost 480 aircraft, three-quarters of its total, not to mention most of its crews. American domination of the Marianas was now a foregone conclusion.

Not long after this battle at sea, U.S. Marine divisions penetrated farther into the island of Saipan. Two Japanese commanders on the island, Admiral Nagumo and General Saito, both committed suicide in an attempt to rally the remaining Japanese forces. It succeeded: Those forces also committed a virtual suicide as they attacked the Americans’ lines, losing 26,000 men compared with 3,500 lost by the United States. Within another month, the islands of Tinian and Guam were also captured by the United States.

June 1944 represented a conspicuous moment of military achievement for the Allied powers with historian Craig Symonds declaring, “June 1944 might well be labeled the decisive month of the entire Second World War.” As the Allies landed in Normandy, breaching Hitler’s Festung Europa, the Empire of Japan’s airpower suffered near annihilation in the Philippine Sea

The Japanese government of Premier Hideki Tojo resigned in disgrace at this stunning defeat, in what many have described as the turning point of the war in the Pacific."

 

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
So, the final word...
 
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GreatwhiteNorth

Global Moderator
Staff member
So, the final word...
No surprise there.
 

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
Today in Military History:

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1945 June 22 Battle of Okinawa ends as the U.S. 10th Army overcomes the last major pockets of Japanese resistance on Okinawa Island, ending one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. The same day, Japanese Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, the commander of Okinawa’s defense, committed suicide with a number of Japanese officers and troops rather than surrender.

On April 1, 1945, the 10th Army, under Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, launched the invasion of Okinawa, a strategic Pacific island located midway between Japan and Formosa. Possession of Okinawa would give the United States a base large enough for an invasion of the Japanese home islands. There were more than 100,000 Japanese defenders on the island, but most were deeply entrenched in the island’s densely forested interior. By the evening of April 1, 60,000 U.S. troops had come safely ashore. However, on April 4, Japanese land resistance stiffened, and at sea kamikaze pilots escalated their deadly suicide attacks on U.S. vessels.

During the next month, the battle raged on land and sea, with the Japanese troops and fliers making the Americans pay dearly for every strategic area of land and water won. On June 18, with U.S. victory imminent, General Buckner, the hero of Iwo Jima, was killed by Japanese artillery. Three days later, his 10th Army reached the southern coast of the island, and on June 22 Japanese resistance effectively came to an end.

The Japanese lost 120,000 troops in the defense of Okinawa, while the Americans suffered 12,500 dead and 35,000 wounded. Of the 36 Allied ships lost, most were destroyed by the 2,000 or so Japanese pilots who gave up their lives in kamikaze missions. With the capture of Okinawa, the Allies prepared for the invasion of Japan, a military operation predicted to be far bloodier than the 1944 Allied invasion of Western Europe. The plan called for invading the southern island of Kyushu in November 1945, and the main Japanese island of Honshu in March 1946. In July, however, the United States successfully tested an atomic bomb and after dropping two of these devastating weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, Japan surrendered.


https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/The Final Campaign Marines in the Victory of Okinawa PCN 19000313500_1.pdf

Twenty-three Americans were awarded the Medal of Honor for their courageous conduct during the 82 days of fighting.
 
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