Robert Sanderlin

The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star Medal to Robert Sanderlin, Master Sergeant, U.S. Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action against the enemy while serving as a Detachment Team Sergeant in the 1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan, during combat operations in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, in Afghanistan, on 8 April 2007. On that date, Master Sergeant Sanderlin and his team were ambushed during a foot patrol in the Upper Sangin Valley in Helmand Province. During the initial moments of the attack Master Sergeant Sanderlin was knocked unconscious by shrapnel from an rocket propelled grenade. After recovering, he ran under intense fire to retrieve an anti-tank weapon and engaged three enemy machine gun positions with the weapon, all the while drawing heavy volumes of fire to his position. At one point during the eight-hour battle when a team member was wounded and in danger, he moved under heavy fire to reach his comrade. He moved on foot, under fire and through difficult terrain, the length of three football fields to set up a landing zone to evacuate the wounded soldier. After the casualty had been evacuated, he used a door-mounted machine gun to cover the team’s extraction from the ambush zone, despite the fact that his vehicle was hit eleven times by enemy fire. He then helped to direct Air Force special operations AC-130 gunship fire that killed 195 enemy fighters.