thedrifter
11-10-06, 06:58 AM
Wounded sergeant pressed on in Afghanistan
Updated 11/9/2006 8:43 PM ET
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
On June 3, 2004, Staff Sgt. Anthony Viggiani was with a company of Marines searching for weapons caches and insurgents in an Afghan village in Zabul Province. When word arrived of enemy fighters outside the village, two squads of Marines were sent out to find them.
Viggiani, 26, led one of the squads into a valley nearby where the Marines came under fire and two them were wounded. Viggiani ran down a steep hillside searching frantically among the rocks for any sign of hidden machine guns nests firing at his men.
"I'm looking for anything out of the ordinary," he says.
Viggiani spotted a piece of cloth draped over an arm protruding from among the rocks. It was a cave with a machine gun crew inside and it was right below where Viggiani was standing. He shot into it with his rifle and dropped a grenade inside. The blast killed the gunners.
Other insurgent guns continued to fire. Viggiani, by now wounded, set off a smoke bomb to help Army helicopters locate and attack the enemy fighters.
Eighteen insurgents were killed.
Viggiani, then a sergeant, was awarded the Navy Cross.
Ellie
Updated 11/9/2006 8:43 PM ET
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
On June 3, 2004, Staff Sgt. Anthony Viggiani was with a company of Marines searching for weapons caches and insurgents in an Afghan village in Zabul Province. When word arrived of enemy fighters outside the village, two squads of Marines were sent out to find them.
Viggiani, 26, led one of the squads into a valley nearby where the Marines came under fire and two them were wounded. Viggiani ran down a steep hillside searching frantically among the rocks for any sign of hidden machine guns nests firing at his men.
"I'm looking for anything out of the ordinary," he says.
Viggiani spotted a piece of cloth draped over an arm protruding from among the rocks. It was a cave with a machine gun crew inside and it was right below where Viggiani was standing. He shot into it with his rifle and dropped a grenade inside. The blast killed the gunners.
Other insurgent guns continued to fire. Viggiani, by now wounded, set off a smoke bomb to help Army helicopters locate and attack the enemy fighters.
Eighteen insurgents were killed.
Viggiani, then a sergeant, was awarded the Navy Cross.
Ellie