The United States Air Force awards Air Medals to six members of the 512th Airlift Wing at Dover Air Force Base.
Then-Capt. Christopher Nelis, Capts. Brandon Cruz and Brandon Riley, Master Sgt. Patrick Burk, then-Senior Airman Max Wilson, and Senior Master Sgt. Michael Wright helped evacuate U.S. citizens and allies from Kabul, Afghanistan in August 2021 while exposed to “hostile enemy actions.”
Air Medals are awarded for acts of heroism while in aerial flight in support of U.S. operations in combat, according to the Air Force.
Five of the six airmen are in Lt. Col. Brian Moritz’s squadron.
“They were just part of the broad effort that was later called Operation Allies Refuge,” Moritz said. “And they use C-17 [Globemaster], which is an amazing aircraft with even better people that operated it, and we were able to pull out a large amount of civilian, at-risk people.”
“With very limited resources, very questionable security, and a lot of moving parts, our airmen were awarded this Air Medal,” Moritz said.
The Air Force calls this operation the largest non-combatant evacuation in Air Force history and Moritz adds the Air Medal with Combat Device is a fairly rare distinction.
“It takes a pretty lengthy review process… where I think they just looked at the desperation, the stability of the field, the security, the lack of security,” Moritz said.
