Navy corpsman given Army's Soldier's Medal

YORKTOWN

In the scheme of things, the act of heroism for which Roy Jaquez was honored this week - helping to rescue three civilians from a downed helicopter that could have exploded - was just another day at work.

After all, it wasn't the first time the 27-year-old sailor had saved a life; as a Navy hospital corpsman, that is his job. Nor was it the first time he'd found himself in harm's way. During a previous deployment to Iraq, he narrowly survived a suicide bomb attack, and in Afghanistan, where the helicopter crash took place, his small northern outpost took fire routinely.

In fact, Jaquez considered the rescues so unremarkable that at the time, he made only brief mention of them to his parents back home. And as of Wednesday, roughly five months after the accolade was approved, he hadn't yet told them he'd earned the Soldier's Medal, the Army's highest noncombat award for heroism.

"I guess it just hasn't come up," Jaquez said matter-of-factly during an interview at his command's headquarters at Yorktown Naval Weapons Station. "It's definitely a huge honor, but, really, I was just doing what corpsmen do. We help people who are hurt."

The deployment to Afghanistan was Jaquez's fourth since he enlisted in the Navy eight years ago, soon after the Texas native graduated high school.

He arrived in February 2010 and spent most of the tour at an outpost in Nuristan province that was home to roughly 200 troops from various military branches. When he wasn't out on patrols, he was treating the sick and the wounded - both Americans and Afghans - at the outpost's medical aid station.

That's where he was on May 3, when an Air Force staff sergeant with whom he worked caught a glimpse of a heavy-lift transportation helicopter that was coming in to land at the flight line a few hundred yards away.

"It looks like it's going to crash," Jaquez, now a petty officer first class, recalls her saying.

He figured she was joking. Within seconds, though, the helicopter had slammed into the ground, landing on its side after some kind of mechanical failure, and they were running toward the wreckage. Inside were three civilian contractors who had flown to the outpost to deliver ammunition.

The official narrative of events paints a dangerous scene: "The still-running engine threatened to further shatter the remaining rotor blades and send shrapnel flying indiscriminately across the crash site. One of the helicopter's fuel tanks ruptured, spilling highly flammable aviation fuel around the wreckage, threatening a massive explosion and potential detonation of the high-explosive mortar rounds that had spilled from the helicopter's cargo hold."

Even so, a handful of people moved in to help, including Jaquez, who yelled at a growing crowd of onlookers to stay back.

"In my mind, I saw all those people as potential casualties," he said. "And I'd rather prevent an injury than treat one."

With the broken-off rotor blades still turning, dirt and debris were flying everywhere. A nearby military photographer reached into the helicopter through a broken window to try to pull the emergency fuel shut-off, but he couldn't manage to do it. By then a physician's assistant who'd also been in the medical aid station, Navy Lt. Kyle Burditt, was on top of the helicopter, pulling two of the contractors to safety.

Jaquez stayed on the ground, where, according to the official narrative, he used his bare hands to break out the windshield so he could pull out the third man, who was the most seriously injured. He delivered him to a stretcher and then ran ahead to prepare the aid station as the other rescuers carried the contractors in for treatment. Within an hour, the victims were on another helicopter, on their way to an in-country hospital.

A year and a half later, Jaquez doesn't know their names, but he knows they all survived, and he says that's enough.

"It was a big relief."

He was awarded the Soldier's Medal in a ceremony Tuesday at his command, Riverine Squadron 3. He said four other service members who helped with the rescues also were recommended for the medal, including Burditt, who has since received it.

Corinne Reilly, (757) 446-2949, corinne.reilly@pilotonline.com