Airman receives Purple Heart from chief of staff

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. J.G. Buzanowski
  • Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs
WASHINGTON (AFNS) --  On Christmas Eve, Master Sgt. David Webber wasn't thinking about Santa or sugarplums. He wasn't wrapping presents for his two boys or his wife. He was in a guard tower. In Afghanistan. Helping scan for snipers.

But that was before being hit with chunks of shrapnel that had him losing a pint of blood a minute.

Since then Sergeant Webber has been recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Jan. 8 was invited to the Pentagon to receive his Purple Heart medal from Gen. Norton Schwartz, the chief of staff of the Air Force.

"We all take an oath to serve and our ethic is 'Send me,' and you did that very thing," General Schwartz told Sergeant Webber. "A Purple Heart is not something you volunteer for and you certainly hope you don't repeat it, but you've served honorably and with courage."

Sergeant Webber, the NCO-in-charge of mental health at McConnell Air Force Base, Kan., was deployed to Forward Operating Base Orgun-E, in eastern Afghanistan last August. His job was to look out for his fellow Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, and make sure they were dealing well with the stress of the deployment.

"You don't really have a lot of credibility when you just show up to talk to someone.  They just don't trust you or feel comfortable talking with you yet," Sergeant Webber said. "So I just started spending time with folks. I sat in guard towers, I helped out the field surgical team, basically anywhere I could just sit and get to know people and help them while they worked.

"That's when they started opening up to me about issues so that I could do my job and help them deal with the stress," he added.

Sergeant Webber found himself spending more and more time at the Margah Combat Operations Post. The outpost had been shelled with mortar rounds and attacked by snipers for months. The people there were constantly on edge.

Just the kind of place Sergeant Webber was needed.

"I had just come down from a lookout tower helping a Solider spot for muzzle flashes," Sergeant Webber said. "I'd been putting together a list of comforts the troops had asked for -- energy drinks, ramen (noodles) -- and I was standing behind a truck. The next thing I knew I was on all fours and it felt like someone hit me in the face with a shovel. All I could hear was the ringing in my ears."

Sergeant Webber found out later a mortar round hit the truck directly. But at the time, it was all he could do to make his way to a bunker where a medic found him bleeding.

"I'd been to the combat lifesavers course and I'd taken self aid buddy care classes and when they teach you about tourniquets, you never expect to be the one having the timestamp written on your forehead," Sergeant Webber said. "That was probably the most surreal part of it."

After being airlifted back to Orgun-E and brought to the field surgical team, they started asking him his name and the date to see if he was okay.

"They didn't recognize me with the oxygen mask on, so I took it off and told them, 'Hey guys, come on, it's Sergeant Webber.  You know me.'"

The shocked medics immediately went to work on the NCO who just a couple of weeks earlier brought them sodas, mopped their floor and helped them save the lives of other troops. Sergeant Webber was one of their own.

Soon after that, he was on his way to Walter Reed. 

Even though he's extremely honored and humbled the Air Force chief of staff pinned on his Purple Heart, Sergeant Webber says with pride, "I got hurt, but those folks at Margah still got their energy drinks and ramen noodles."

Sergeant Webber returned home Jan. 9. His goal is to become a first sergeant.

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