Medic gets Distinguished Service Cross
By Henry Cuningham, Military editor
Master Sgt. Brendan O’Connor on Wednesday received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second-highest valor award, for his actions during a 17-hour battle in Afghanistan.
The 47-year-old Special Forces medical sergeant, who resigned his commission as an officer and then took the rigorous training to become a Special Forces medical sergeant, spoke with humor and humility after the medal was pinned on his uniform in a ceremony at Bank Hall on Fort Bragg.
“My word!” O’Connor said, reacting to praise by a three-star Army general and a four-star Navy admiral. “My name is Brendan O’Connor, and I didn’t fully approve that message.”
In his self-effacing remarks, O’Connor apologized to his children for missing birthdays and thanked his wife, Margaret, for what she has done in raising their family in his absence.
O’Connor led a quick reaction force June 24, 2006, in Kandahar province’s Panjwai District, described by Special Forces as one of the most hotly contested areas of southern Afghanistan.
He maneuvered his force through Taliban positions and crawled alone through enemy machine-gun fire to reach two wounded soldiers, the citation said. He tied a signal cloth to his back to identify himself to aircraft overhead. While under fire, he provided medical care and carried a wounded soldier more than 150 yards across open ground. He climbed over a wall three times under enemy fire to help wounded soldiers seek cover. Then he took over as the operations sergeant and rallied, motivated and led his team.
“Thank God for men like Master Sgt. O’Connor,” said Lt. Gen. Robert Wagner, commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg.
Maj. Sheffield Ford said after the ceremony that O’Connor picked up Sgt. Joseph Fuerst and carried him over his shoulder and ran while under fire.
“Knowing that bullets were coming in all around him, he didn’t hesitate,” Ford said. “He continued to get up and move because he knew he had to get Joe back if he was going to have a chance to try to save him.” Fuerst died, and Staff Sgt. Matthew Binney survived, Ford said.
Staff Sgt. Brandon Pechette remembers O’Connor being “calm and cool and very intelligently funny while we were there, keeping the morale high, which is very important because we were such a small force against overwhelming odds.”
The award came 40 years after O’Connor’s father was killed in Vietnam.
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