Reflected in a photo of Pfc. Christopher Fernandez, his wife, Maritza, kisses the couple's son, Nathaniel.
Family proud of new dad who risked his life in Iraq
The road from Tucson to Baghdad has been a tough one for teenage soldier Christopher Fernandez and his family.
The Army has declared him a hero. But the honor barely eases the hearts of loved ones praying for his safety.
Fernandez, a 19-year-old newlywed and new dad, received one of the nation's highest honors for combat bravery Friday when a two-star general pinned a Silver Star on his chest.
The private first class earned the honor for putting himself in danger to save others when his unit was ambushed in Baghdad in May, the Army said Monday.
The Silver Star is the country's third-highest award for valor on the battlefield.
"I'm so proud of my husband. I love him so much," said Fernandez's wife, Maritza Fernandez, also 19, on Monday.
"But there's part of me that wishes he would run and hide when the shooting starts," she added, cradling the couple's 2-month-old son, Nathaniel, who was born while his father was at war.
The couple were married in August of last year and have spent much of the past year apart between basic training and deployment.
"It hasn't been easy for us," Maritza Fernandez said. "But I try to be brave because he's so brave."
The Army said that courage was evident on May 5, when insurgents staged a nighttime attack on Christopher Fernandez's patrol unit from the Army's 1st Cavalry Division.
First a homemade bomb hit one of the soldiers' Humvees. Then the enemy opened fire, spraying them with waves of bullets as soldiers tried to evacuate the dead and wounded.
Two Army machine gunners were shooting back, but it wasn't enough to repel the enemy fire. That's when Fernandez spied another M-240B machine gun sitting inside the bombed-out Humvee.
He made a dash for it, retrieved the extra gun and provided enough added cover fire for the soldiers to finish their recovery and get out of the area.
The Army said the condition of the extra machine gun made Fernandez's actions even more heroic.
The gun he fetched normally has hand guards covering its barrel so the gunner's hands won't be burned during use.
But the hand guards on this gun had blown off during the Humvee explosion.
"That didn't matter to Fernandez, though; he kept firing even though his hands were burning," the Army's Web site said.
Two soldiers were killed and five wounded in the attack. Maritza Fernandez said her husband has recovered.
Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the 1st Cavalry Division's commanding general, flew to Baghdad to pin on the Silver Star.
"Pfc. Christopher Fernandez is a hero. He represents the best of us," Chiarelli told the Army News Service.
Christopher Fernandez called the award "a great honor," according to Army News.
The description of her husband's actions sent chills through Maritza Fernandez back in Tucson.
But it was a hopeful sign, she said, that he seemed to know what to do when danger struck.
"He didn't freeze up, and he kept on doing what he had to do," she said.
Christopher Fernandez moved from Arkansas to Tucson with his family five years ago. He attended Pueblo High Magnet School briefly, then earned an equivalency diploma and joined the Army in a bid to better himself, his wife said.
He was sent to Iraq in March and could be there until September 2005, his wife said.
When the Army allowed him to come home for two weeks in July to see his new baby, Maritza Fernandez said her husband seemed changed by war.
He was more serious, less jovial, she said. He'd acquired a nervous habit of constantly drumming his fingers and was always on guard, noticing every coming and going from the family home and every person who glanced his way.
"He tells me sometimes that it's scary. It's scary to think you might not come home," Maritza Fernandez said.
"I just pray to God every day, because if anyone can bring him home alive, it's the Lord."
