It was 4 a.m. on July 17 when Tech Sgts. Matthew Treadwell and Randy Sampson awoke to sounds of gunfire close to their deployment site.
Running to put their gear on, the two security forces advisers to the Afghan Air Force security forces didn't know they'd be engaged in a nearly five-hour fire fight.
Four months later, they each received Bronze Stars with Valor for their actions during a small ceremony Nov. 16 at Forward Operating Base Oqab, Afghanistan.
On that July morning, a group of insurgents set up a highly protected position inside a high-rise complex, 80 yards from the Afghan Air Force Base perimeter that houses Oqab, a small eight-acre compound within the surrounding Afghan base near Kabul. Treadwell and Sampson, along with four other security forces members, coordinated a battle plan with their Afghan counterparts and then barreled into a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle and headed outside the wire.
While taking fire, Sampson and Treadwell moved quickly and took cover in a building, about 100 meters from the attackers' position. The two security forces airmen worked their way around the building's second floor, returning fire with their M4 rifles and calling out target locations to about 40 security forces on the ground and Afghan forces in the radio tower above.
"This is our job to defend the base form any outside attack," Treadwell said in a Dec. 3 interview from Afghanistan.
"But at this magnitude — this was a first," added Sampson, a 16-year Air Force veteran who is on his sixth deployment.
The enemy fired more than 20 rocket propelled grenades at coalition forces and assets during the attack, detonated a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device and donned suicide vests, according to an Air Force release.
But "none of our people died or got hurt so this was the best possible outcome," said Treadwell, a 10-year Air Force veteran who is on his second deployment.
As they cornered the remaining insurgents, Treadwell said that he and Sampson saw helicopters from Bagram Airfield overhead and heard F-16s conducting show-of-force flyovers. Afghan members from the 111th Capital Division and U.S. Marines also joined the fight before it was confirmed that at least four insurgents were killed in the battle.
"I guess you could say they mopped up for us, basically," said Treadwell.
The incident brought the coalition forces closer together, Treadwell said. "That bond you get when you're in a gunfight with someone, there's no words that can describe that."
The two members — who advise, work, bunk together, and even share the same home state of Oklahoma — are looking forward to returning stateside after their tour with the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Air Training Command-Afghanistan.
Treadwell heads back in the next few days to Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, to be the noncommissioned officer in charge of combat arms for the 97th Security Forces Squadron as an instructor.
In five months, Sampson will return to Travis Air Force Base, California, to be flight chief in charge of base police security forces.
