Meet Our Decorated Heroes: God Bless Them!
Marine Corps Reserve Sgt. Jeff Hunter
Author: FSM Editors
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: September 8, 2007
“I honestly don’t believe I did anything all that heroic,” Sgt. Jeff Hunter remarked, about his Silver Star citation. This is a typically modest response from those who served with Hunter during two intense fights, but you will conclude that it’s a dramatic understatement, as you read his story.
In May of 2005, then-Cpl. Hunter’s platoon planned to surprise insurgents with a dawn assault in the market district in the town of Haditha. Instead, it was the enemy who first engaged the platoon in a brazen ambush. As gunfire erupted, Hunter’s squad moved to take out insurgents firing from a nearby house. As the squad leader entered the home, an insurgent shot him in the chest.
Hunter saw the man down. He rushed inside the structure while spraying the area with his M16. Grabbing his comrade, he was able to move him out of the house – at which point he used his own body to shield his fellow Marine. Hunter, now in charge of the squad, rallied his men and led them back into the house – clearing it with bullets and grenades, killing one insurgent while capturing three more.
Two months later, Hunter found himself in another life-and-death gunfight, a battle that lasted for four hours, moving through the streets of Cykla, a village near Haditha. After enemy fire from a hostile house hit a Marine, Hunter’s platoon engaged the enemies, forcing them to flee to a second hiding place. By the time his squad cleared the second house the insurgents had already left.
Two of the Marines approached a couple of nearby cinder block buildings, and insurgents firing from a fortified position suddenly hit one Marine. Hiding behind a three-foot-high wall, Hunter returned fire and shot two insurgents. He also made two attempts to extract the wounded Marine. The shooting was too intense, so Hunter ran through the line of fire and across the street to an M1A1 tank – which he guided to strike the enemies’ position. The tank eliminated the threat and allowed the platoon to retrieve its mortally wounded comrade.
Speaking about his experiences in Al Anbar Province in Iraq, notoriously one of the most dangerous locations in the area, Hunter told the Albuquerque Tribune, “There were a lot of scumbags . . . a lot of people who had no problem hurting people, beheading people, torturing people.” To fight this kind of enemy, entrenched in the local population, coalition forces have to run foot patrols in narrow streets and close quarters – which often escalates into intense urban combat.
"Sometimes I won't think about the actual combat for weeks," he says. "Actually, that's not true. I think about it every day."
For his actions, Sgt. Hunter received the Silver Star in June 2007
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