Staff Sgt. Zachary Rhyner may get Medal of Honor after all

Pope Airman to get second-highest medal for valor
By KEVIN MAURER
Associated Press Writer

Posted: Today at 4:16 p.m.
Updated: Today at 5:58 p.m.

POPE AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. — From flat on his back, Air Force Staff Sgt. Zachary Rhyner could see just enough of the valley to guide the F-15s flying thousands of feet above him in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Machine gun rounds smashed into rocks nearby and showered him with debris, and a bullet gorged a chunk of his thigh. Yet he calmly radioed pilots his "nine-line" - the formatted message needed to call in the strike. His artery wasn't hit. He would be fine, he thought, as long as insurgents didn't overrun his team trapped atop a 60 foot cliff.

For the next six hours, after the fighter jets couldn't push back insurgents, Rhyner stayed with an Army Special Forces team and a few dozen Afghan commandos to fight hundreds of insurgents in Shok Valley, considered a sanctuary for the Hezeb Islami al Gulbadin terrorist group.
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Air Commando saves lives in Afghanistan
Air Force Special Operations Command Public Affairs
by Capt. Laura Ropelis
Posted 3/6/2009

HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. -- An Air Force Special Operations Command Air Commando saved lives in Afghanistan April 6 during a lengthy battle by calling in air strikes to protect his team.

Staff Sgt. Zachary J. Rhyner, a special tactics combat controller assigned to the 21st Special Tactics Squadron at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., was deployed to Operation Enduring Freedom as the primary joint terminal attack controller while attached to a special forces team.

Then a Senior Airman, Sergeant Rhyner was part of a 100+-man combined assault force whose mission was to enter Shok Valley and capture a high-value target who was funding the insurgency. Sergeant Rhyner is credited with saving the10-man team from being overrun twice in a six-and-a-half-hour battle.

Air Force Capt. Stewart Parker, special forces commander at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, was the command-and-control link to the JTACs on the ground as they went into Shok Valley.

"This was the first time U.S. special operations forces entered the territory," said Captain Parker. "These were extraordinary conditions and the situation was dynamic."
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