The Patriot Post® · Profiles of Valor: U.S. Army National Guard CWO James Herring
On 23 December 2006, then-Chief Warrant Officer 3 James Herring of the North Carolina National Guard was leading a five-vehicle patrol in Tahrir, Iraq, when the convoy was attacked by three jihadis with machine guns. The gunner in Herring’s Humvee easily dispatched the enemy fighters only to immediately be confronted with 20 more pouring over a wall 30 feet away. The gunner took aim and killed many insurgents, but the driver was soon hit in the thigh by enemy fire as another group of insurgents was now attacking from the other direction.
Herring left the vehicle, fired and killed two jihadis and then ran to assist the wounded driver. Despite being knocked to the ground by the impact of a rocket-propelled grenade, Herring helped to move the driver into the rear seat for further medical treatment. He then drove the Humvee and led the convoy down side streets and back to safety.
Not a single member of the convoy was lost, in large part thanks to Herring’s actions, for which he received the Silver Star. Of the incident, the decorated Virginia law-enforcement officer said, “I think that we spent about 400,000 minutes in Iraq, and you get recognized for something that took three minutes. I want to reiterate I wasn’t the only hero out there. All those guys out there are heroes to me. They did things that warrant the same award in my opinion.”
(This account was originally published in the .)
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