Our Salute to Josh and those Fallen Beside Him

On Memorial Day we bless the fallen and on Veteran’s Day we bless the surviving veterans. But below, we have both and this is a moving story of what a Band of Brothers really is.

How One Army Ranger’s Salute Brought 50 Soldiers To Tears

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One of the last things Army Ranger Josh Hargis did in Afghanistan on Oct. 6,  2013 was take a step toward a seemingly unarmed man.

 

Hargis’ Ranger unit “was conducting a mission to try to capture an HVT (High  Value Target), in the Panjwai district of Afghanistan,” according to the site Guardian of Valor.

Their post is based off multiple field reports of the  incident:

As several members of the Ranger unit  moved toward the man to begin questioning him, a woman wearing a suicide vest  emerged from the house and blew herself up, killing several members of the unit  instantly, along with [their] dog, and injuring others.

Hargis was flown to the nearest combat medical facility where he  was stabilized. Prior to his follow-on flight to Germany, the unit’s commander  organized a hasty bedside ceremony to award Hargis the Purple  Heart.

Later, Taylor Hargis, Josh’s wife, received a letter and an image from the commander,  describing what Josh did in response to the ceremony:

During the presentation the  Commander published the official orders verbally and leaned over Josh to thank  him for his sacrifice.

Josh, whom everybody in the room (over 50 people)  assumed to be unconscious, began to move his right arm under the blanket in a  diligent effort to salute the Commander as is customary during these ceremonies.  Despite his wounds, wrappings, tubes, and pain, Josh fought the doctor who was  trying to restrain his right arm and rendered the most beautiful salute any  person in that room had ever seen.

 

Josh

 

 

I cannot impart on you the level of emotion that  poured through the intensive care unit that day. Grown men began to weep and we  were speechless at a gesture that speaks volumes about Josh’s courage and  character.

Guardian of Valor dubbed it the “Salute heard round the world,”  and the officer wrote to Taylor that he thought the picture should be posted  “on every news channel and every news paper.”

“I have it hanging above my desk now,” he wrote, “and  will remember it as the single greatest event I have witnessed in my ten years  in the Army.”

Today, Hargis and his wife are expecting their first child. And this past March, Hargis participated in Warrior’s Walk, a 222-mile hike from Fort  Bennet, Georgia, to the National Infantry Museum in Columbus, Georgia.

 

 

Posted in Citizens Duty, DOJ, DC and inside the Beltway, Terror.

Denise Simon