Soldier honored at home

Stuttgart, Ark. -

 Sgt. First Class Thomas Wright turned down his chance to be pinned with his Bronze Star on television. Instead, he saved his memorable moment to come home. It was here in Stuttgart at Allen Temple Missionary Baptist Church that Wright was pinned on Sunday, Dec. 6 by Rev. Gilbert Byrd.

“Two other guys got on T.V., but I wanted to do it at my church,” Wright explained.

Wright is a graduate of Stuttgart High School class of 1990. He went into the Army directly out of high school and has recently been awarded the Bronze Star with Valor for one event and another Bronze Star for his whole deployment in Afghanistan.

Wright went into the Army on Aug. 28, 1990. Since then, he has been to Korea twice, Kuwait once and Afghanistan once. But the trip to Afghanistan is one that will forever stick out in his memory.

“On Dec. 22 we went out overnight, we left about 11 p.m.,” Wright said, starting a story that would land him a Bronze Star — a very coveted award.

Wright, along with three other men, set out into the mountains. They went out to see if they could hear any kind of movement, see the Taliban move at night to set in and attack the soldiers during the daytime hours, he explained.

“We occupied a cave around midnight and we stayed there all the way until 4 a.m. No kind of contact or anything like that. Around 4:30 a.m. we made a lot of movement getting ready to leave,” Wright said.

Then over the Taliban radio, which they could intercept, they heard, “I see them, I see four of them, go up the mountain and see if you can catch them.”

After hearing that the Taliban had spotted them, they all tried to leave the hilltop.

“As we were going down — I was third in line at the time — we were moving down kind of slow. I ordered my guys to stop and consolidate and talk about us moving faster down the hill, because we knew we were about to get hit,” he said.

The small group picked back up, with Wright as the leader, and took about 15 steps before all hell broke loose and the team was ambushed.

“They started from the back,” he said.

The fourth guy in line was shot in both legs, the third was hit in the back twice and the second was also hit in both legs and in the lower calf.

“As they were walking up to me, I dove behind some rocks,” Wright said. “At that time I was the only one left, with three wounded guys. I continued to fight back. There was five Taliban that I could see with my eyes that were moving towards me within 50 feet. I fought them off for a while.”

He then tried to call base to alert them they had been ambushed and needed help. Help was not going to be quick enough so he low crawled over to the his last guy that was hit and pulled him to safety behind the rocks with him — the soldier could not move on his own.

“The other two guys were wounded, but were able to shoot back. They shot a little bit.  As time moved by they were moving closer on us, and by this time they were 25 feet away. No help could come so I got on my radio and called up to any Apache that was in the area,” Wright said. “Luckily there was one Apache in the area. He came over and saw that I was pinned down and had three wounded guys.”

But most importantly, the Apache pilot and crew noticed the five Taliban that were moving in on the group and were able to shoot them down. .

“That is when I got my two other guys and pulled them over there by the rocks with me and called up the Medivac helicopter,” he explained. “They came in wrapped them up and put them all in the helicopter and flew them off.”

As his men were being flown to receive medical help, he was left on ground alone to make his way back to base.

“I ran about 200 meters by myself down the hill to link up with the rest of the guys,” Wright said, ending the story that allowed him to receive a Bronze Star with Valor when most are given posthumously. 

All three men survived the ordeal with their lives, although with some handicaps. The man shot in the back is now paralyzed.

“I don’t even remember breathing,” Wright said of that night. “You are so scared, but you know if you don’t fight back you won’t make it. My main concern was not getting captured and my guys not getting captured. I know we had the most firepower out of the both elements. So fighting back wasn’t any problem, but just them catching us…”

Normally in that area the groups never went out with less than 12 guys, but they usually always ended up detected.

“We decided to go with a light element, but heavily harmed,” he said.

In his platoon alone he lost four men, with 12 others being wounded — out of 32. Wright was never seriously injured, but had his shoulder knocked out of place due to an IED.

“For the whole deployment, I got a Bronze Star, and the Bronze Star with Valor for this event. The only way you can get that is if you happen to do something heroic or by putting your life in danger.

Normally don’t to many guys live to get this. It is normally awarded to their families.”
He was blessed, he says.

He was staring at retirement, but has recently been called to Georgia for two more years to train soldiers getting ready to be deployed to the same area.

Wright was featured on MSNBC and the New York Times. The journalist followed the troops during their deployment.

Currently he is on a two week leave before reporting to Georgia, he stopped in Stuttgart to visit family and friends and to make his Bronze Star even more special by receiving it in his childhood home and church. 

 

 

***Printed in the Stuttgart Daily Leader (12/10/2009)