Someone you should know- Travis Atkins
The Army infantry squad leader saw a bomb vest on the Iraqi man in front of him. He took the man down and then was seen shifting his body in order to use himself as a shield to protect his men. SSG Atkins was initially awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (2nd highest valor award), but after the DoD began a review of its award policy, the award has been upgraded to the Medal of Honor- the medal that his battalion commander put him in for in the first place.
His son, 11 when his father was KIA, will accept the MoH on behalf of his family.Army Sgt. Sand Aijo was in the gun turret of a Humvee in 2007 when he and his fellow soldiers rolled up on two suspicious men in Iraq’s “Triangle of Death.” They were in a place U.S. soldiers didn’t expect to find them, and so glassy-eyed and fidgety that Aijo charged his machine gun, he recalled.
Staff Sgt. Travis Atkins, their gruff but revered squad leader, stepped out of the Humvee and walked toward the first stranger. Then an Army medic stepped out of the back seat, moving toward the second.
As Aijo tried to keep track of both soldiers, Atkins unexpectedly began grappling with the first Iraqi just a few feet away. Atkins grabbed him in a bear hug, slammed him to the ground and pinned him down.
“The thing that became confusing was that once they hit the ground, the way that Travis began positioning his body, it just seemed strange to me,” Aijo said. “That’s when the detonation happened.”
On Wednesday, Atkins, of Bozeman, Mont., posthumously became the fifth U.S. service member to receive the nation’s highest award for combat valor, the Medal of Honor, for actions during the Iraq War.