Three airmen who were injured during a January drone attack on a remote base in Jordan, which killed three service members and injured dozens more, have received Purple Hearts, according to the National Guard.
The three service members given the award — Air Force Staff Sgt. Michael Byrne, Senior Airman Herland Antezana and Staff Sgt. Dustin Dinkelacker — are assigned to the 129th Rescue Wing at Moffett Air National Guard Base in California. They were among the more than 40 troops injured at the Jordan base, called Tower 22, during the Jan. 28 attack by an Iranian-backed militia group.
All three of the Guardsmen “lost consciousness from the blast,” a Saturday news release from the 129th Rescue Wing said. Amid the chaos, the three service members tried to find each other in the wreckage.
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“We ran into the center of where it happened,” Byrne said in the news release. “At that point, we realized this isn’t a training thing. This is real life.”
The airmen were presented the Purple Heart — the decoration recognizing troops who are injured or killed while in service — on Saturday at Moffett Air National Guard Base. Maj. Gen. Steven Butow, commander of the California Air National Guard, pinned the Purple Hearts.
During the Jan. 28 attack, three Army reserve soldiers based out of Fort Moore, Georgia, were killed — Sgt. William Rivers, Spc. Kennedy Sanders and Spc. Breonna Moffett. All three were posthumously promoted, Military.com previously reported.
Many of the others injured in the attack — predominantly Guardsmen from units in Arizona, California, Kentucky and New York — were evaluated and then cleared. Eight of those injured had to be evacuated from Jordan to the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center for more intense medical treatment for conditions such as traumatic brain injury.
Military.com reported that the attack raised concerns among lawmakers about how the militia was able to evade U.S. detection and anti-drone defenses.
During the attack, the three Air National Guardsmen “went door to door, put out fires, and searched through rubble to find other injured service members” and “waited to seek attention for their injuries until pararescuemen and additional medical personnel were available and the commotion died down,” the news release said.
“That’s when we realized what impact the UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] made on us, when the adrenaline started coming down,” Antezana said in the news release. “We weren’t feeling well at that point.”
Antezana, Byrne and Dinkelacker continued their deployment at Tower 22 through May.
Between October 2023 and the Jan. 28 attack, U.S. and coalition buildings had been attacked 150 times in Iraq and Syria, the Pentagon said following the incident. The drone attack was the first to take American lives and the first in Jordan at that point.
Military.com reported in February that it wasn’t immediately clear whether Guardsmen and soldiers injured in the attack would be presented with certain combat awards following the incident.
In February, then-National Guard Bureau Chief Gen. Daniel Hokanson visited Guardsmen who were there for the attack and presented at least two Purple Hearts to two specialists, the National Guard said in a March news release.
“They had done everything they could to prepare themselves,” Hokanson said in the news release at that time. “And so, when that horrible time did come, they defaulted to their training. What they did in response after the attack to mitigate the damage and the injuries was extremely powerful. As a result, many lives were saved.”
Spokespeople for the Army and Air Force did not respond in time to publication asking how many Purple Hearts related to the Tower 22 incident have been presented.
Many of those Guardsmen stationed at Tower 22 were providing support roles in what typically was not considered a dangerous assignment. Byrne said following the attack, he recognizes the important role he plays in the fight.
“For the longest time, I considered myself just a mechanic,” Byrne said in the news release. “Don’t downplay your job once you get in. Everyone is important.”
Related: Army Still Weighing Combat Awards for Soldiers Hit by Deadly Drone Attack at Jordan Base
