Romeshay, Clinton

Background

The unit in which Romeshi served defended the Combat Outpost Keating outpost in the area of ​​Camdesh, Nuristan province. The outpost was located in a valley surrounded by mountains and was constantly attacked. Believing that this position is unsuitable for defense, the U.S. Army Command decided to close the outpost by October 2009.

Fight

On the early morning of October 3, 2009, the Taliban attacked the post from three sides. The forces of the attackers were approximately 300 people, armed, except for small arms, mortars, hand grenade launchers and machine guns. The coalition forces numbered approximately 85 people, including US Army personnel, instructors from Latvia, and 35 Afghan soldiers who, at the first sound of the battle, left their positions ^[1] . The attackers managed to seize the post ammunition depot.

During the first three hours of the battle, the defenders of the post were under heavy mortar and rifle fire. The attackers managed to break into the protected area. Despite heavy fire, sergeant Romeshay left the shelter and moved to the neighboring barracks, thereby supporting her defenders, who were under the fire of the Taliban sniper ^[1] . Then Romeshay gathered a group of five people and, despite a strong fire, led her into an attack on the ammunition depot. At the same time, he suppressed the machine gun position of the attackers.

Attacking the second machine-gun point, Romeshay was wounded by fragments of a grenade in the neck, shoulder and arms ^{[2] [3]} . Despite the wound, the sergeant gave target designation to the air support forces, which allowed to destroy up to 30 attackers. At the same time, several of them were destroyed by Romeshey personally. Despite the fact that he himself was under fire, the sergeant covered with fire the wounded comrades; he personally took out several wounded from under the fire. Romeshey’s actions made it possible for other defenders of the post to regroup and, as a result, repel the attack of superior enemy forces ^[2] .

Result

The battle lasted 12 hours. 8 American soldiers died in it, which makes this clash one of the bloodiest in the entire war ^[4] . According to the results of the battle, nine Americans received the Silver Star Medal ^[1] . A few days after the attack, the post was curtailed ^[5] .

Sergeant Romeshay received the award from the hands of US President Barack Obama at the award ceremony held at the White House on February 11, 2013 ^{[2] [6]} . He became the fourth in a row of living, awarded the Medal of Honor for the war in Afghanistan, and the eleventh in the general list of those awarded ^[1] .