“Not you, you idiot!” Spraktes yelled. “My kids!” The men shared a momentary laugh amid the gunfire, and then the cable started moving again.
Spraktes reached the ground intact with explosions and gun bursts echoing all around him and went to work on the three injured patients as his Black Hawk crew flew to safety. This was only the beginning.
After tending to the most severely injured patient, Spraktes called for the Black Hawk to return to his location to pick up the injured Soldier and fly him to a nearby base. The Black Hawk delivered the patient then returned and picked up two more injured Soldiers — again leaving Spraktes behind to care for and defend the Soldiers on the ground.
"By the grace of God we were not hit," said co-pilot Chief Warrant Officer Scott St. Aubin. "I have no idea how you miss a giant Black Hawk helicopter. It was really surreal."
After dropping off patients for the second time, the Black Hawk returned to find that Spraktes was treating two Soldiers for dehydration. He again deferred his place on the aircraft to the injured Soldiers and sent the Black Hawk on its way, this time telling the crew he would stay on the ground and return to base on foot.
Spraktes’ crew would hear nothing of it, though, and returned to the dangerous location for a sixth time to perform yet another combat hoist extraction, finally bringing Spraktes to safety.
“I told the pilots I wasn’t leaving him,” Gifford said. “I was just doing my job and trying to get our guys out. [Medical evacuation] is a very dangerous job — there’s always somebody trying to shoot you down and stop you from what you’re trying to do.”
Spraktes was honored for his actions Sunday with the Silver Star — the third-highest award for valor given by the U.S. armed forces — and Gifford, St. Aubin and pilot Chief Warrant Officer Brandon Erdmann each received the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor Device. Erdmann is a member of the Wyoming National Guard. The other three awardees are members of the California National Guard’s Company C, 1-168th General Support Aviation Battalion.
Spraktes was the first California National Guard member to receive the Silver Star this century.
“This ceremony is about your selfless service while protecting our freedoms here at home,” said Brig. Gen. Mary J. Kight, the adjutant general of the California National Guard, during a ceremony at Mather Flight Facility near Sacramento. “These four Soldiers are American heroes. … I am proud to serve with you and I believe the acronym DUSTOFF truly describes your actions.”
DUSTOFF, which is synonymous with medical evacuation (medevac), stands for Dedicated Unhesitating Service To Our Fighting Forces.
“You four exemplify the very best of our military,” said Col. Mitchell Medigovich, commander of the 40th Combat Aviation Brigade, which includes Company C. “We put you in the most austere conditions, the most difficult places and ask you to perform missions that are simply daunting, and you always rise to the occasion.”
He noted that medevac helicopters — unlike all other aircraft flown by the CNG — are unarmed. The red cross on the helicopter is meant to deter fire, but the enemy often treats it as a bull’s-eye instead, Medigovich said.
“[Medevac Soldiers] do the job every day, unhesitating,” he said. “It’s a very special breed. Just the fact that you’re flying in there is testing one’s mettle.
“[This crew] is the best example of how our Soldiers react to adversity and accomplish the mission, saving the lives of our fellow patriots.”
The four awardees, however, deflected all praise, insisting they were only doing their job, doing what the Soldiers on the ground depended on them to do — doing what any other DUSTOFF crew would have done.
“We just happened to be there when the mission came up,” St. Aubin said. “Any one of the crews with us [in Afghanistan] would have done the same thing. I’d trust my life with any single one of them.”
“Medevac — you choose that unit,” he continued. “You know the danger and inherent risk. The kind of person who chooses that [job] is out here today.”