Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator (SEAL) Edward C. Byers Jr. is set to receive the Medal of Honor at the end of the month. He recounts the mission in his own words, above, taking time and making a point to honor his friend, Chief Nicolas Checque, who did not return from the same mission.
Byers, as noted by the Navy, will receive the award on 29 FEB from the POTUS in a ceremony at the White House as a result of his actions as part of a team that rescued an American civilian held hostage in Afghanistan in 2012.
Byers, 36, already has an impressive salad bar of awards and decorations to include five Bronze Stars with Combat V device, two Purple Hearts, the Joint Service Commendation Medal with Valor and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Combat V device earned across seven combat tours and eight overseas deployments.
A native of Ohio, he joined the Navy in 1998.
Byers will be the first Seal to be presented with the Medal of Honor since the survivors of Master-at-Arms 2nd Class Michael Anthony Monsoor received his posthumously in 2008 from President George W. Bush.
Further, no image existed of Byers in the public domain before this week other than his high school yearbook photo, as special operations guys tend to stick to anonymity.
They are literally the quiet professionals.
I’ve been around these men in work capacities and, when working as a journalist have been allowed to take images of certain cleared equipment and non-identifiable personnel (far in the distance, or from the back), always clearing imagery with the PAO to make sure no faces or sensitive gear/equipment/place identifiers got out. OPSEC, PERSEC, etc.
So you can expect to see Byers step from behind the cloak of invisibility for the next few weeks– because he is being ordered to. After all, the Pentagon went to all the trouble for a MOH, they want to show it off.
And then, as detailed in an interview this week, the active duty Senior Chief will slip back into the teams, and continue to keep his mouth shut rather than cash in and start blabbering.
What he has more trouble stomaching, though, are the books written by retired SEALs that reveal secrets of their trade. No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden, was a best-seller in 2012 and has spawned several other books about SEALs. Don’t look for a first-person account by Byers of the mission that saved Joseph anytime soon.
“I’ve been in the military almost 18 years,” Byers said. “I’ve lived a very quiet life. I’m not exactly sure what their motives are and what they’re trying to accomplish by writing those. I’ve never read their books. I have no plans in the future to write a book or do a movie or anything like that. It’s not what I believe in.”
Can I get a Bravo Zulu for the Senior Chief.
