Alwyn Cashe gets his Medal of Honor after extraordinary sacrifice, years of delay
Staff Sgt. Douglas Dodge was dazed and sick to his stomach, still in shock after a roadside bomb blast slammed him and other soldiers against the ceiling of their 27-ton armored vehicle. He had regained consciousness and forced his way to safety, but his friends were still inside — screaming and on fire.
Sgt. 1st Class Alwyn Cashe, who had been riding in the front of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, appeared out of the darkness. He was wearing a helmet, body armor and boots, but little else. His camouflage uniform, sopped in fuel, had begun to melt away.
“Dodge!” Cashe yelled. “Where are the boys?”
The desperate moments that followed became the subject of a years-long Army investigation — mired by internal conflict — to determine whether Cashe, who reached into the burning vehicle at least six times to rescue those trapped, merited the military’s preeminent distinction for his courage and selflessness in Iraq on Oct. 17, 2005.
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On Thursday, more than 16 years after he died in a Texas burn center at age 35, his widow, Tamara, will accept the Medal of Honor from President Biden at a ceremony celebrating Cashe and two fellow soldiers heralded for their valorous acts in separate battles.
Joining Cashe’s family will be Master Sgt. Earl Plumlee, 41, who faced down suicide bombers at close range during a Taliban assault in Afghanistan in 2013, and the family of Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Celiz, 32, who will posthumously receive the award, for protecting a medical evacuation helicopter there in 2018 until he was cut down by gunfire. All three cases have met congressionally mandated standards, including a risk to one’s life that is “above and beyond the call of duty.”
But Cashe’s actions, especially, have captured the imagination of a generation of U.S. troops, while raising an often-repeated question about his award: What took so long?
“This is probably the clearest-cut case of a Medal of Honor action that I’ve ever seen,” said Douglas Sterner, a Vietnam veteran and historian who has studied military awards for decades.
Notably, Cashe will become the first Black service member to be recognized with the military’s top combat award for actions since 9/11. Other Black troops who served in Iraq or Afghanistan have received high-ranking valor awards, but never the Medal of Honor.
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How Cashe’s case came to drag on so long is a story both of bureaucracy and perseverance. The plan had been for President Donald Trump to award the medal before leaving office in January, but that was scuttled due to safety concerns after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, according to three people familiar with the situation. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations between the White House and Pentagon.
Kasinal Cashe White, Cashe’s older sister, said in an interview that she is immensely proud of her brother and grateful to the Army officers who refused to stop advocating on Cashe’s behalf, even after the Army declined to follow their recommendation more than a decade ago that he receive the award. She said she does not believe that race was a factor in the initial decision, and noted that some of her brother’s fiercest advocates within the Army are White.
“He earned this,” White said. “And, okay, he’s Black. Yes, he is. He’s just as dark as my daddy. But he just happened to be a Black soldier who did what he did. He did what he did out of love for his men, and respect for his men.”
‘It looked like a movie’
Cashe grew up poor, the youngest of 10 children in a blended family in Oviedo, Fla., an Orlando suburb. Their father died during a surgery when Cashe was 5, and they lived in a three-bedroom apartment overseen by the housing authority in Seminole County for the first years of Cashe’s life before moving into a rental house that has since burned down.
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Cashe was “rambunctious” as a child and a daredevil, his sister said. It surprised his siblings when he joined the Army, but it was evident that he loved the lifestyle.
“He found his niche when he went into the service,” White said. “It allowed him to be as adventurous as he wanted to be, and he loved it.”
In January 2005, Cashe and his unit — 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division — deployed to a decrepit airfield north of the Tigris River that U.S. forces called Forward Operating Base Mackenzie. Their patrols through the nearby town of Duluiyah frequently encountered al-Qaeda fighters, said Col. Jimmy Hathaway, who became Cashe’s company commander that April.
“It was always a powder keg,” Hathaway said. “There was always a fight going on someplace.”
On Oct. 17, the soldiers from Mackenzie were assigned a reconnaissance mission to ensure a vital supply route from nearby Balad air base remained safe. A sandstorm prevented U.S. aircraft from observing potential threats along the road, but unit leaders, including Cashe, decided they needed to launch the patrol anyway.
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The mission called for at least three Bradley Fighting Vehicles — armored infantry transports that are on tracks and outfitted with heavy weapons — to provide security near Duluiyah. One of the Bradleys stayed behind with a mechanical problem, prompting Cashe, the platoon sergeant, to put his vehicle in the front as they rumbled through the night.
The convoy, carrying 17 soldiers and their interpreter, was barely a couple of miles from the base when the explosion occurred. Sgt. Gary Mills, in the back of Cashe’s Bradley, felt the vehicle veer right just before the blast. An instant later, he saw the interpreter, Baka, engulfed in flames beside him.
Dodge, seated in the same compartment, reached for the door handle, burning his hand. He grabbed a breaching tool, he said, forced open the hatch, fell to the ground and vomited.
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Moments later, Cashe leaned into the flames.
From the second Bradley, 1st Lt. Leon Matthias witnessed the explosion — and then saw Cashe under gunfire. His crew opened fire on a nearby tree line as Cashe pulled the wounded from the wreckage and others raced to smother the flames.
“I swear,” said Matthias, now a lieutenant colonel, “it looked like a movie to me.”
Matthias radioed to the base, requesting immediate aid. By the time Cashe had pulled out the last man, it appeared as if he was wearing no clothes.
“His uniform was so burned off,” Matthias said. “His pants looked completely shredded, like someone took scissors to it and just cut it up.”
A convoy arrived from Mackenzie to pick up the wounded. Helicopters were prepared to evacuate them when they returned to the base, but Cashe insisted that other soldiers leave first and refused to be put on a stretcher despite his extensive burns, Matthias said.
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“It was the last time I saw him,” he added. “Him walking to the helicopter in a shredded uniform.”
‘Tell them to fight!’
The Army sent the burned soldiers, including Cashe, for treatment at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. They were split into two groups, with the least injured among them — Dodge, Mills and Spec. Raymond Salerno III — in one contingent and the rest in the other. Even then, Mills, who had burns over 17 percent of his body, was placed in a medical coma for four days, he said.
Cashe had suffered burns over 72 percent of his body, but he continued to share optimism. He and Mills made plans to go hunting despite the long recovery ahead.
“I was standing there and talking to him, and I was like, ‘How are you not in this bad mood?’ Mills said.
But the injuries took their toll. Baka, the interpreter, was declared dead the night of the explosion. Staff Sgt. George Alexander, 34, who was engulfed in flames as Cashe pulled him from the Bradley, died five days later. Sgt. Michael Robertson, 28, died three days after that, followed by the vehicle’s driver, Spec. Darren Howe, 21, about a week later.
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Cashe, still in severe pain, was anguished about the deaths, his sister said.
“It was sad because when Al would gain consciousness, I would have to tell him,” White said. “He was like, ‘Tell them to fight! Tell them, ‘Come on, man!’ I pulled them out!’”
Cashe died Nov. 8, about three weeks after the attack. Infections had taken his legs, Dodge said. The following July, Salerno died.
Soldiers who witnessed Cashe’s actions were certain they saw something extraordinary. Lt. Col. Gary Brito, their battalion commander, quickly nominated Cashe for the Silver Star, the Army’s third-highest award for valor in combat. Cashe was presented the award along with the Purple Heart, which is reserved for those wounded in battle, before he died.
But for years, Brito, Hathaway and others thought it was likely that Cashe deserved more. Brito submitted a nomination to upgrade the Silver Star to a Medal of Honor, writing in a 2009 sworn statement that the lasting impact of Cashe’s actions seemed “even more amazing” over time.
The nomination came as the U.S. military faced criticism from rank-and-file troops and veterans for having awarded just a handful of Medals of Honor for combat exploits early on in the Iraq War, despite the extreme violence troops encountered there. Sterner, the historian, attributed the pattern to senior commanders at the outset of America’s post-9/11 campaigns not recognizing what heroic actions in combat deserved.
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It was not clear who may have held up the nomination. Brito, in a 2011 memo arguing again for an upgrade, said that he “was not able to secure an endorsement” for the Medal of Honor from Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who had approved Cashe’s Silver Star. Vines, who is retired, could not be reached for comment. In other cases, Army officials have declined to upgrade awards while citing insufficient evidence, conflicting witness statements or a belief that experienced soldiers should be held to a higher standard.
Hathaway called Brito, now a three-star general at the Pentagon, “the one who fought and fought and fought through the bureaucracy” to make sure the nomination didn’t die.
In an interview Wednesday, Brito said the review process is rigorous, “and it’s necessary that it is,” because there is “no room for gray area” in awarding a Medal of Honor.
In re-examining Cashe’s case, officials gathered additional witness statements from soldiers who had been split up across the globe, he said. Some were struggling with post-traumatic stress. Brito encouraged Cashe’s supporters to be patient, but resilient, as the review stretched on.
“It’s having confidence in the procedures and full trust in those who needed to advance this award,” he said.
In fall 2020, the case finally seemed to be on the brink of White House approval. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, an Army veteran, wrote in a letter to lawmakers that Cashe’s actions merited the Medal of Honor and asked for them to waive a limit that says the award must be presented within five years of a service member’s actions. Congress passed legislation to do so, and Trump signed it into law last December.
Dodge and Mills, the two survivors who were in the back of Cashe’s Bradley, each said they have struggled with what happened. Dodge said he sought 30 days of inpatient treatment for post-traumatic stress last year, and he tells others about it to encourage candor about mental health.
“I now know that the more I revisit an event, the less painful it becomes,” said Dodge, who retired from the Army as a sergeant first class.
Hathaway said Wednesday that reliving that night has been emotional for everyone, but that Thursday’s ceremony will bring closure.
“He loved those kids with his heart and soul,” Hathaway said. “Tomorrow is about getting it right.”
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