He Gave His Life to Save Others

WASHINGTON — When the roadside bomb detonated, it ripped through the fuel tank of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and ignited like napalm. The seven men seated inside were knocked unconscious and had no chance to escape the fire.

But the gunner, Sgt. 1st Class Alwyn Cashe, managed to crawl out of the burning wreckage. Wounded and drenched in diesel fuel, he pulled the Bradley’s driver from his seat before the flames reached there, dragging him to safety.

And then he went back.

The 16-year Army veteran had seen a dozen of his men die on that tour in Iraq, and he couldn’t bear to lose another. His uniform caught fire as he desperately tried to open the Bradley’s hatch.

By the time he got in, all he had on was his body armor and helmet, the rest of his uniform in ashes or seared to his skin. With help, he carried one of his dying men out of the fire and back to horrified medics trying to triage their charred colleagues.

And then he went back.

Soldiers couldn’t tell what rounds pinging off the Bradley were from insurgents’ weapons and which ones were from their own ammunition ablaze in the vehicle. As he reached the next Soldier, Cashe tried to douse the fire on his uniform, only to realize that his own skin was peeling off from the heat. As another Soldier helped pat out the flames, Cashe moved the next wounded friend to safety.

And then he went back.

Cashe was the last of the injured to be evacuated from the scene. Doctors later said he suffered second- and third-degree burns over 90 percent of his body, but he still walked off the battlefield under his own power.

He spent the next three weeks at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio trying to recover as his men died one by one in adjoining rooms. Of the seven he helped evacuate, five could not survive the burns.

Cashe’s family said that time was full of pain and grief for the platoon sergeant, his only consolation being that some of those Army brothers had the chance to say goodbye to their families.

When his own family asked why he ran into the fire, knowing he would burn, knowing it would cost his life, Cashe told them, “I had made peace with my God, but I didn’t know if my men had yet.”

Cashe was the last from that battle to die. A week after he passed away, the Army awarded him the Silver Star, the third-highest combat military decoration a service member can receive for battlefield heroism.

That was six years ago. Now, his family, his men, his commanders and veterans who never met Cashe want to know why this hero — a man who willingly embraced a painful, fiery death to save his fellow Soldiers — has not been given the military’s highest award, and the recognition he deserves.

They blame the military’s awards system, a confusing set of seemingly inconsistent rules and unofficial practices that they say, at least in Cashe’s case, have deprived a hero of his rightful recognition.