  
  
LIONS IN BATTLE!!
HM/1 (FMF) BENNY FLORES, USN, AWARDED SILVER STAR
HM/1 (FMF) Benny Flores stands at attention after he received the Silver Star Medal during ceremony for heroism in Afghanistan on April 28, 2012. At right is Marine Sgt. Major Harrison Tanksley.
Perhaps no one is confronted more intimately with the horrors of war than hospital corpsmen and medics. When explosives rip apart a human body or stop a beating heart, the person the corpsman tries to save is often a friend or comrade.
Afterward, they often overlook the many they saved, haunted by the ones they couldn’t.
For Doc Flores, his own concussion and lacerations were serious enough to require hospitalization. He didn’t worry about that until he was airborne with the wounded in the medevac flight to Camp Bastion.
The Citation for Doc Flores's Silver Star:
"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action with combat operations against the enemy while serving as Field Medical Service Technician, I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), on 28 April 2012, in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. During a partnered convoy, Hospital Corpsman First Class Flores was a passenger in a vehicle that was struck by an Improvised Explosive Device attack and received small arms fire from several enemy positions. Without regard for his personal safety, with shrapnel wounds to his arms and neck, Hospital Corpsman First Class Flores treated the nearest wounded Marine while he was engaged by enemy small arms fire. He assisted the wounded Marine in maneuvering to a covered position and without hesitation, ran back into the street, exposed to enemy fire, and quickly provided medical assistance to a severely wounded Afghan Uniform Police Officer still in the damaged vehicle. Hospital Corpsman First Class Flores moved the injured officer to cover and administered First Aid. Under the cover of suppressive fire from members of the convoy, he returned a third time to the damaged vehicle to help another wounded Marine. After Hospital Corpsman First Class Flores applied a tourniquet, the wounded Marine was carried to cover where he continued to treat the casualty. Under the cover of suppressive fires by nearby Marines, he again crossed the street a fourth time to treat the final wounded Marine. Hospital Corpsman First Class Flores steadfastly refused treatment for his own wounds until all of his comrades were treated. By his extraordinary guidance, zealous initiative, and total dedication to duty, Hospital Corpsman First Class Flores reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service."
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jason Flores, a Kiowa helicopter pilot in the Army, couldn’t believe they were talking about his little brother when he heard about it. Doc Flores had always been generous, always willing to spot his brother some cash, always the last to leave after cleaning up from a party. But what he did that day in Afghanistan, “It touched my heart,” Jason Flores said.
When he was wounded, Flores was two months into his tour, his third combat deployment after previous ones to Iraq and Kuwait. His wife Jerianne, his high school sweetheart and mother of their 4-year-old daughter, wanted to choke him through the telephone line when she found out he chose to remain in Afghanistan until the end, Flores said.
He stayed because of the bond between the Marines and their corpsman. “We’ve got to take care of each other.”
Before he left Afghanistan he started wearing a black metal memorial bracelet to Pruitt. It adorns his wrist even now.
“I wish we all came back,” Flores said. He thinks about Pruitt almost every day, always wondering “if there was anything I could have done more.”
|
|
|
|
