Stephan Johns

The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star Medal to Stephan Johns, Sergeant First Class, U.S. Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving as a Special Forces Sniper on a Special Operations Team, during combat operations in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, on 30 May 2004, in Afghanistan. On that date, Sergeant First Class Johns was in the last helicopter of a group mounting an assault on Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in a valley in northeast Afghanistan. His job was to shoot at the enemy from the air to provide cover to ground forces. When his helicopter was hit and briefly forced down, Sergeant First Class Johns jumped out to set up a one-man defensive wall between a group of enemy fighters and the main American assault group. Alone on the ground for 30 minutes before being picked up by another helicopter, he killed nine enemy fighters who repeatedly rushed him.