A Marine Raider was awarded the Silver Star Medal for heroic actions while deployed to Afghanistan in 2019, at a ceremony aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. July 10, 2020. The master sergeant and Critical Skills Operator, was serving as a Team Chief with 2nd Marine Raider Battalion in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel when his team was engaged by enemy combatants. According to the award citation, during a heliborne raid into difficult enemy-controlled terrain in Southern Afghanistan, he led his team of Marine Raiders and partner nation forces in four hours of close combat with more than a dozen Taliban fighters occupying defensive strongholds. The Team Chief exposed himself to enemy fire to lead an assault across 30 meters of open terrain, attacking Taliban fighters entrenched in a bunker with his rifle and hand grenades. While he and his team took accurate enemy fire, the Team Chief again exposed himself by climbing on top a building to employ a roof charge in order to recover a wounded Afghan soldier. With enemy fighters barricaded just a few feet away, he heroically pulled the wounded man to a covered position in a valiant attempt to save his life, while allowing his team to engage the barricaded fighters with fragmentation grenades.