Ranger earns Silver Star for hand-to-hand combat
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Oct 4, 2008 10:43:50 EDT
The Rangers were wading through chest-high grass and deep irrigation ditches.
Spc. Joseph Gibson, 23, felt something odd underfoot. It turned out to be an armed man wearing a suicide vest. What happened next earned Gibson a Silver Star medal.
“He was kneeled down in one of the irrigation ditches. I actually stepped on him and just because of how the terrain was I really didn’t even think anything of it. I took about two more steps before I thought, ‘I’d better see what that was,’ ” said Gibson, of A Company, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment.
Gibson received the Silver Star at a ceremony Sept. 26 at Fort Lewis, Wash., where his unit is headquartered.
It was April 26, and Gibson, who joined the Army in 2005 “to get as much action as I could,” had already been to Iraq three times on the night he and his squad were moving through the ditches.
The man in the ditch was the last thing he expected to see, Gibson said, and because he had been pushing through the grass to see the ground, he didn’t have his rifle aimed.
“He was fixin’ to shoot me and there’s no way I could have shot him first, so I just got in front of his weapon ... and he fired it off right next to my face,” Gibson told Army Times. “I tackled him to the ground and grabbed hold of his weapon ... and I started hollering for help. While I was doing that he ripped my helmet off.”
Before help could arrive, Gibson was in a full-scale hand-to-hand fight with the man, who was on his back and tenaciously fighting to get control of his AK47 assault rifle.
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By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Oct 4, 2008 10:43:50 EDT
The Rangers were wading through chest-high grass and deep irrigation ditches.
Spc. Joseph Gibson, 23, felt something odd underfoot. It turned out to be an armed man wearing a suicide vest. What happened next earned Gibson a Silver Star medal.
“He was kneeled down in one of the irrigation ditches. I actually stepped on him and just because of how the terrain was I really didn’t even think anything of it. I took about two more steps before I thought, ‘I’d better see what that was,’ ” said Gibson, of A Company, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment.
Gibson received the Silver Star at a ceremony Sept. 26 at Fort Lewis, Wash., where his unit is headquartered.
It was April 26, and Gibson, who joined the Army in 2005 “to get as much action as I could,” had already been to Iraq three times on the night he and his squad were moving through the ditches.
The man in the ditch was the last thing he expected to see, Gibson said, and because he had been pushing through the grass to see the ground, he didn’t have his rifle aimed.
“He was fixin’ to shoot me and there’s no way I could have shot him first, so I just got in front of his weapon ... and he fired it off right next to my face,” Gibson told Army Times. “I tackled him to the ground and grabbed hold of his weapon ... and I started hollering for help. While I was doing that he ripped my helmet off.”
Before help could arrive, Gibson was in a full-scale hand-to-hand fight with the man, who was on his back and tenaciously fighting to get control of his AK47 assault rifle.
go here for more
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