Man Earns Flying Cross For Saving Lives

By Keith Rogers

Posted: November 14, 2009 at 5 a.m.

• Print item
• E-mail
• Share
• Tweet

LITTLE ROCK — Editor’s Note: This is the seventh in an ongoing series that tells the stories of men and women in the armed forces who have been awarded for acts of bravery while serving their country.

As its rear wheels touched the ground, bullets ripped through the Chinook helicopter. Army door gunnerson both sides responded with their M-60 machine guns while nearby explosions from rockets fired by escorting Apache AH-64 gun ships above rocked the Chinook.

Engulfed in the fury, Chief Warrant Officer Sean Laycox was determined to land his Chinook and insert Special Forces soldiersnear a village where several high-value Taliban leaders were meeting.

A relatively peaceful 10-year Army career was changing abruptly on April 18, 2005, as Laycox made his first air assault into the teeth of the enemy. It would not be his last treacherous landing that day.

What had started as a monotonous tour for him - delivering supplies for OperationEnduring Freedom - was turning into a violent battle at Deh Chopan in remote southeastern Afghanistan.

As Laycox led another Chinook and the Apaches to the landing zone alongside an orchard, the insurgents emerged from a row of mud buildings.

The second Chinook touched down while Laycox circled back to land. In a hail of bullets, he said, “We were basically sitting ducks there.”

While Special Forces soldiers scrambled out the back ramp, Laycox radioed for the Apaches to provide cover.

“You could hear the Apaches shooting their rockets to the mud wall off to the right, which was very distracting,” he said. “During this whole time there was a huge explosion to the aircraft,the six o’clock position.”

Laycox initially thought it was from an Apache-fired rocket. He later learned that an insurgent had rushed the aircraft with a hand grenade. Special Forces soldiers shot him before he could reach the helicopter.

“He dropped the hand grenade, and that’s what the explosion was we heard,” Laycox said. “Fortunately for us, he didn’t get it on board.”

His bullet-riddled helicopter had taken a couple in the front transmission, and Laycox saw that the Chinook was about 50 degrees hotter than usual - dangerously close to its limit.

“As soon as we got those guys off, we took off as quickly as we could and kind of accelerated low-level so we could get behind the hill where they couldn’t shoot at us any more,” he said.

Into view came the sister Chinook, also shot up andleaking oil.

“So we found a spot for him to land in a little valley, kind of a depression where we could hide the helicopterthe best we could,” Laycox said. “He landed there, and we landed behind him.”

The battle raging, word soon came to remove bothSpecial Forces teams. But only Laycox’s Chinook was still operable.

He flew back to the battle, again drawing fi re on approach and in the landing zone.

Mo rtars and rocketpropelled grenades pounded the area as the Chinook was loaded.

It seemed like an eternity for the troops to load, Laycox said. Thirty seconds turned into minutes as he kept thinking: “You can’t leave them there. Once you leave them there, they’re sitting ducks themselves.”

So the Chinook crew waited. “They’re (Special Forces) doing their best to get everyone on board,” he said. “But time stands still for the air crew. … This is what we have to do. ... It’s part of the job. There’s an obligation to the soldiers that you put in.”

The Chinook sat on the ground for five or six minutes. “The whole time we could hear these explosions, and you could see them once in a while. They loaded up all the dead Taliban and troops and then we got out of there.”

Later, he and his crew went back a third time to retrieve the crew from the stranded Chinook.

Laycox received the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Air Medals for valor in other engagements in September 2005 from Vice President Dick Cheney in a hangar at Bagram Air Base.

The citation refl ected the real bottom line: No U.S. soldiers were killed.

In part, it read: “The skillful piloting and selfl ess decisions of ... Laycox throughout the battle and his valorous determination to support the inserted assault force had no doubt saved the lives of many on this day.” KEITH ROGERS COVERS THE MILITARY FOR THE LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL.

News, Pages 1 on 11/14/2009

Comments

To report abuse or misuse of this area please hit the "Suggest Removal" link in the comment to alert our online managers. Please read our comment policy.

Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.