Rodney A. Scalise

The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star Medal to Rodney A. Scalise, Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving as a Special Forces Medic with Operational Detachment Alpha 325 (ODA-325), 1st Battalion, 3d Special Forces Group (Airborne), during combat operations in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, on 19 August 2006, in Afghanistan. Staff Sergeant Scalise’s team was conducting a combined Afghan National Army (ANA) and a U.S. Special Forces patrol in the vicinity of Yakden Village in the Cahar Cinch region, Oruzgan Province, when they were ambushed by a numerically superior Anti-Coalition Militia (ACM) force. With ANA and U. S. Forces pinned down in a “U”-shaped ambush, Staff Sergeant Scalise jumped into action and manned a 240B Machine Gun until he became aware of casualties. At that time he dismounted his armored vehicle, moved over 100 meters through heavy enemy fire, and began triage of three casualties. He quickly identified that the most severely wounded individual, an airman attacked to the detachment, had already succumbed to his wounds. Moving to the next casualty, his Team Commander Captain Kenneth Dwyer, Staff Sergeant Scalise provided lifesaving first aid to him and another team member. To protect both casualties, he supervised their movement in the back of an open-bed truck to a more secure location. With the casualties out of the battle zone, Staff Sergeant Scalise got back in his vehicle and fought his way through a three-kilometer rolling ambush back to the team’s base camp, where he continued to care for his two comrades.