Camp Pendleton Marine awarded Silver Star

Camp Pendleton Marine awarded Silver Star
By Jeanette Steele
5:51 p.m., July 5, 2011

The month was August, and Sgt. Franklin Simmons was exhausted from foot patrolling and low on fluids when the ambush happened.

It was 2008, and the United States was on the cusp of dispatching large forces to Afghanistan to rejoin the battle there in earnest. The future would bring tough days for Marines.

Foreshadowing those, fierce fighting broke out on that sweltering August afternoon, when a platoon of 30-odd Marines defeated more than 250 enemy soldiers and took the village of Shewan.

In the end, it meant a Silver Star for Simmons, a 27-year-old Camp Pendleton Marine who displayed “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action,” according to his award citation.

Simmons received his medal Monday while aboard the amphibious ship Boxer on deployment in the Gulf of Aden.

“It was a good day for the platoon, a good day for the Marine Corps, and a bad day for the enemy,” Simmons said Tuesday, remembering the battle during in a telephone interview from the ship. “I don’t know how we pulled it off.”

The Silver Star is the third-highest military decoration awarded for valor against an enemy.

The Battle of Shewan resulted in at least 14 major medals for Marines.
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Camp Pendleton Marine awarded Silver Star