Beach native awarded Silver Star for heroism in Afghanistan

Mike Morgan grew up in Virginia Beach, a self-described "average, undersized kid." He played soccer, got decent grades and didn't know what he wanted to do after he graduated from Kempsville High School.

He certainly never expected to receive one of the military's most prestigious medals for valor in combat.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates clipped the Silver Star onto the 43-year-old Army helicopter pilot's desert camouflage uniform in Afghanistan in March. The lieutenant colonel, commander of the 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, earned the military's third-highest decoration for his actions in August when he and his team came to the aid of U.S. soldiers who'd been ambushed while working to clear bombs from a road outside Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

Morgan returned home from the yearlong deployment in April, but he didn't say much about the battles that led to the Silver Star as well as two Distinguished Flying Crosses and an Army Commendation Medal with Valor. His parents, longtime Beach residents John and Frederica Morgan, are still finding out the basics.

"He's not one to talk about this," Frederica Morgan said. "He will tell you that it's definitely a team effort, it's not just one person doing this, and if they didn't all have each other's back, it wouldn't be happening."

The official description of Morgan's actions on Aug. 24 covers more than two single-spaced pages. About 30 U.S. ground troops faced about 100 enemy insurgents armed with heavy machine guns, small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

The document details how Morgan, flying his Kiowa Warrior helicopter, led nine other helicopters in a six-hour battle against a well-disguised enemy operating from lush grape fields and thick-walled, earthen buildings.

Twice, Morgan's team of two helicopters refueled, re-armed and returned to the fight.

Twice, Morgan stayed in the fight even after running out of rockets and .50-caliber ammunition for the chopper's forward machine gun. As lead pilot, he and a trailing Kiowa made two additional passes directly over the insurgents, drawing fire away from the ground forces. Their only weapons at that point: the M4 rifles the co-pilots fired out of the cockpit.

Capt. Anthony Fuscellaro served as Morgan's wingman that day, attempting to provide cover for Morgan's chopper.

He had spent three months as Morgan's co-pilot, so he knew that his boss would be relentless as long as coalition forces were in danger.

"Col. Morgan made it known to everybody in our whole task force that we were there to support the ground forces. We were to do everything in our power to help them, regardless of how dangerous the situation became for us," Fuscellaro said.

Four soldiers - members of the 4th Engineers - were pinned down in a ditch about 20 meters away from an enemy machine gun emplacement, getting pounded.

Kiowa Warriors don't have laser-guided rockets or computer systems that tell pilots where to shoot. Instead, they sight-in their weapons by putting a grease-pencil mark on the windshield, then line up their target with the mark. ("It's like gun fighting in the street with a six-shooter," Morgan said. "It's very old school, but it works every time when you need it the most.")

Fuscellaro said no one in the task force was better than Morgan at hitting difficult targets when it counted most.

He watched Morgan co me in "danger close" - a term pilots use when a wrong move could cause friendly fire or collateral damage - and level the emplacements.

"Only the best pilots will take danger-close shots. He hit that machine gun nest square with two rockets," Fuscellaro said.

Morgan says that kind of fighting is "unbelievably exciting, like NASCAR on steroids."

There's a definite rhythm to a battle, he said, similar to a basketball or soccer game.

The comparisons with sporting events end when Morgan leaves the cockpit.

He turns serious talking about the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and the dangers soldiers and Marines on the ground face. "You're living for the ground force. These kids on the ground are walking on the most dangerous paths in the world. And they need the armed reconnaissance over top of them so that they can do their job."

He insists on crediting the soldiers who care for the helicopters and support their missions.

"I've got some world-class superheroes in my outfit," Morgan said. "Some of them turn wrenches, some pump fuel, some fly helicopters."

He refuses to think of himself a superhero - although the soldiers, all of whom made it out alive on Aug. 24 might disagree.

"I believe in the theory of the little engine that could," Morgan said. "That's the way my outfit works, too. I didn't grow up wanting to do this. I was an average B student at Kempsville High School... I just applied a blue collar work ethic and never quit."

With 21 years in uniform, Morgan had expected this deployment - his seventh to Iraq or Afghanistan - to be his last. But his wife and twin 6-year-old daughters will have to wait a little longer to have him at home for good.

This week, Morgan will turn over command of his squadron at Fort Bragg, N.C. He'll head to the Air Force War College in Montgomery, Ala., then take command of the 1st Infantry Division's combat aviation brigade at Fort Riley, Kan.

Fuscellaro said the squadron will miss its leader. It flourished under his command, becoming one of the most decorated aviation units in the current wars. Morgan's team earned 22 Distinguished Flying Cross awards during the deployment, along with 68 Army Commendation Medals. The entire 425-member task force received a valorous unit award.

"The whole unit performed with his strength and confidence," Fuscellaro said. "He would never ask us to do something he wouldn't do himself."

Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com