NEITHER GUNFIRE NOR DARKNESS DETERRED THIS NAVY SEAL
In December 2012 Medal of Honor recipient Ed Byers and fellow Navy SEALs embarked on a rescue operation to free a captive American doctor.
By CHUCK LYONS11/10/2023
Photo of a Medal of Honor.
Medal of Honor. (U.S. Navy)
In December 2012, in the Laghman Province of eastern Afghanistan, Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward Byers of the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team 6 burst into a one-room building occupied by armed Taliban fighters and their hostage, an American physician. The first man into the room, Petty Officer 1st Class Nicolas D. Checque, had been killed. On entering, Byers engaged and killed two Taliban, disabled a third and shielded the hostage with his own body as the rest of the SEAL team poured into the room, lighting it up with muzzle flashes. The hostage emerged unharmed.
For his actions Byers became the sixth Navy SEAL awarded a Medal of Honor. (As of 2022 seven SEALs have received MOHs.) Checque, 28, was awarded a posthumous Navy Cross.
Born in Toledo, Ohio, and raised in Grand Rapids, Byers joined the Navy in 1998. First serving as a corpsman, he completed SEAL training in 2003 and deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan prior to 2012.
https://www.historynet.com/neither-gunfire-nor-darkness-deterred-this-navy-seal/
