Fallen soldier to receive Silver Star

U.S. Army
Cpl. Jonathan Ayers fought heroically until enemy fire cut him down as outnumbered U.S. soldiers repelled a wave of Taliban fighters in July.

Fallen soldier to receive Silver Star
By MONI BASU

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Cpl. Jonathan Ayers picked up an M-240 machine gun and unleashed a hail of bullets from the observation post of a small base American soldiers had set up only days before.

Taliban fighters had attacked before sunrise on July 13, 2008, recalled the GIs’ battalion commander, Col. William Ostlund, now stationed at Fort Benning.

They were firing from a nearby mosque, storefronts in the local bazaar and homes of elders in Wanat, a village tucked in the rugged foothills of the Hindu Kush along Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan.

Grenades exploded. Bullets sliced through trees, severing branches. Everything was on fire, even the grass.

A bullet grazed Ayers’ helmet and knocked him back. But the 24-year-old soldier from Snellville did not recoil. His paratrooper instincts took over. He kept firing amid fierce enemy RPGs and small arms fire.

When one weapon seized up because so many rounds had been fired so rapidly, Ayers picked up another. He fought on until an enemy bullet got him. And he fell — one of nine soldiers who died that day, the largest loss of American life in a single battle in Afghanistan.

On Sunday, the military will posthumously award Ayers its third-highest medal for valor: the Silver Star. His brother Josh, 26, plans to accept the medal, a gold star with a laurel wreath and a silver star superimposed in the center. On the back, the inscription reads: “For gallantry in action.”

Only 146 soldiers who fought in Afghanistan have been honored with Silver Stars, including 13 others in Ayers’ battalion. In Iraq, the military has awarded 396 Silver Stars.
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Fallen soldier to receive Silver Star
Atlanta Journal Constitution - GA, USA