Air Force Cross recipient soars among 'eagles'

  • Published
  • By Ashley M. Wright
  • Air Force Special Operations Command Public Affairs
HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. (AFNS) --  Next to the signatures of the "Candy Bomber," a Tuskegee Airman, the sixth chief master sergeant of the Air Force and a Vietnam prisoner of war, Air Force Cross recipient Tech. Sgt. Robert Gutierrez placed his name as the only current active-duty enlisted Airmen to be named an "Eagle."

Two members of the Air Command and Staff College's Gathering of Eagles team visited here recently to lay the foundation for Gutierrez's experience as a member of a distinguished group of air power legends.

In 1982, Air Command and Staff College students began the Gathering of Eagles. The program is a yearlong, student-run research elective that educates students about and advocates air, space and cyberspace history through biographical studies and personal interviews with the student-selected Eagles. Each year, the 15-person student team is responsible for selecting, contacting, researching, visiting with and interviewing the Eagles.

Gutierrez said the accomplishments of the Eagles are what inspire young men and women when they read about them in history books. And now he is included in that history too.

"I'm definitely honored," said Gutierrez, a combat controller who is now an instructor at the Special Tactics Training Squadron here.

The culmination of the program each year is a week-long symposium aimed at bringing history to life, and in June, Gutierrez will travel to Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., to tell his story to 514 majors currently enrolled in the college.

"It is not about what happened to him, but his whole story," said Maj. John Wahrmund, an ACSC student and GOE team member who came to visit Gutierrez.

In October 2009, Gutierrez and his team were ambushed in the Herat Province of Afghanistan during a high-risk night raid. The team had several injured members and all were trapped in a building with no escape route. During the firefight, Gutierrez was shot in the chest and suffered a collapsed lung. He continued to return fire while calling in precision strafing runs from an A-10 Thunderbolt II nearby.

"I just did my job, and all I was doing was put my input in the fight," Gutierrez said.

For his valiant, life-saving actions, Gutierrez received the Air Force Cross, the service's highest honor.

The two-day visit allowed the team members to Gutierrez see in action.

"We did a tour of (STTS)...and the process of how we are making these battlefield Airmen," Gutierrez said. "We are building a better Airman to support the fight."

The training squadron, part of the Air Force Special Operations Command Training Center, delivers advanced and special tactics skills to combat controllers, tactical air control party members, special operations weatherman and pararescuemen as well as combat aviation advisers and Airmen from security forces and special operations medical elements.

Another important objective of the visiting student GOE team is getting the Eagle to sign hundreds of lithograpths.

Each year, a painting by aviation artist Jay Ashurst is commissioned that depicts the selected Eagles and their airframes or contributions to the air, space and cyberspace industry. Each lithograph is hand signed by each Eagle and sold to help fund the Gathering of Eagles Foundation, which is a nonprofit organization that funds Eagle guest travel and the GOE week events.

Each year the honored Eagles are presented with a lithograph as a remembrance of the occasion.

"To be recognized for this is an extraordinary honor that I will, basically, live with for the rest of my life," Gutierrez said. "It makes me happy that my kids will be able to see it, and our career field gets to see it."

Gutierrez brings a unique perspective to the program, whose legends span from World War II to the modern day, said Wahrmund.

Wahrmund said Gutierrez' s story provides a unique view of airpower from the air-ground perspective, a story that many people don't get to hear.
When asked what he wanted others to learn from his story, Gutierrez had a simple answer.

"What I hope it puts out is that resilient, never quit attitude," he said. "You could be pushing your last breath, but you are not doing it for you. Regardless of what you do in the Air Force, it affects the whole spectrum."