Navy Seal Awarded Medal Of Honor For Daring 2012 Hostage Rescue Operation

Yesterday, President Obama awarded Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward C. Byers Jr. with the United States’ highest military award, the Medal Of Honor, at a White House ceremony. Byers’ actions during a December 2012 hostage rescue operation in Afghanistan are how he ended up standing on stage with Obama affixing the cherished blue and gold medal around his neck.

It was just the sixth time the award was bestowed upon a Navy SEAL.

Edward Byers was the second Navy SEAL through the door of a house in eastern Afghanistan where the Taliban was holding an American doctor.
The first got shot immediately.
Then Byers rushed in. Wearing body armor and night-vision goggles, he shot and grappled with guards while calling out for the hostage. A voice replied from a few feet away: "I'm right here."
Byers threw himself on doctor to cover him from gunfire. With a free hand, Byers grabbed a nearby captor by the throat and pinned him to the wall until another member of the six-man SEAL team shot him.
"Anyone who's been in combat knows that in those moments, you either react or you get killed," Byers said recently, recalling the December 9, 2012 operation.

In the chaos, the doctor, aid worker Dilip Joseph, was rescued, and the SEAL team member ahead of him, 28-year-old Petty Officer 1st Class Nicolas Checque, died.
On Monday morning, Byers, a member SEAL Team 6, stepped from the shadows — the unit operates covertly, and its existence often goes unacknowledged by the military — to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military decoration, for his actions that day.

• Byers is one of only eight living Navy Medal of Honor recipients. There are 78 living recipients total.
• There have been 745 Medals of Honor awarded to Navy personnel. (Three-hundred and eight of those were for actions during the Civil War.)
• Only two Navy service members have received the Medal of Honor for actions subsequent to the Vietnam War, and both of those awards were posthumous. (Lt. Michael Murphy and Petty Officer Michael Monsoor, both SEALs)
• The most recent Navy recipient of the Medal of Honor was Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Monsoor, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by President George W. Bush on Apr. 8, 2008.
• The most recent living Navy recipient of the Medal of Honor was Robert Ingram, who left the Navy in 1968, and was later awarded the Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton on Jul. 10, 1998 for actions during the Vietnam War.
• Senior Chief Byers is the first living active duty member of the U.S. Navy to receive the Medal of Honor since Apr. 6, 1976, the late Rear Admiral James Stockdale and Lieutenant Thomas Norris (also a SEAL) each received the decoration from President Gerald Ford.
• Senior Chief Byers is the first living active duty enlisted member of the U.S. Navy to receive the Medal of Honor since Petty Officer Michael Thornton (also a SEAL) was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Richard Nixon on Oct., 15 1973.
• This is the 14th Medal of Honor awarded for actions in Afghanistan. Including Senior Chief Byers, 11 of those 14 awards were to living recipients. Four Medals of Honor were awarded posthumously for actions in Iraq.