Christopher Fernandez

The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star Medal to Christopher Fernandez, Private First Class, U.S. Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving with Battery A, 1st Battalion, 21st Field Artillery, 1st Cavalry Division, during combat operations in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, at Baghdad, Iraq, on 5 May 2004. On that date Private First Class Fernandez was on a patrol through Baghdad’s Saidiyah neighborhood when insurgents ambushed his unit. An improvised explosive device hit the patrol’s rear vehicle. Immediately following the explosion, the patrol was barraged with small-arms fire. The patrol’s crew-served weapons, an M-240B machine gun and a .50 caliber machine gun, immediately returned fire. The IED explosion killed two U.S. Soldiers, wounded five others and rendered their vehicle inoperable. Private Fernandez returned fire with his weapon, an M-249 squad automatic weapon and reloaded his weapon at least once during the short engagement. In all the chaos, Private Fernandez saw the stricken vehicle’s M-240B machine gun was unused. He knew that another weapon would suppress the enemy’s fire long enough to evacuate the wounded and leave the area. He left his vehicle, ran to the disabled humvee, recovered the weapon and its ammunition and opened fire on the enemy. The weapon’s hand guards, insulators covering the machine gun’s barrel were blown of in the explosion, Private Fernandez kept firing, despite the fact that his hands were burning. Almost 10 minutes later, the wounded were loaded onto the Private Fernandez’s vehicle, and the ambush site was abandoned.