Celebrating the Silver Star and its Most Recent Winner

In July of 1918, as war engulfed Europe and gripped the attention of the world, Congress met to debate honoring American soldiers who had exhibited extreme heroism in combat. The United States had been involved in World War I for just over a year but the toll of this new and modern kind of warfare was quite apparent on both the faces of those returning home and in the startling number of those who didn’t.

That summer, following a sweeping German offensive, the fate of the war seemed unknown. What was known, however, was that something needed to be done to honor those who had acted heroically on the battlefield. Ninety-three years ago today, on July 9, 1918, Congress voted to create the Citation Star to do just that. In 1932 they changed the name of this award to what it is known as today: the Silver Star. This medal, the third-highest military decoration in the country, is given to soldiers who perform “with marked distinction” and demonstrate gallantry in the face of considerable military adversity.

My predecessors knew then what my colleagues in Congress know now: in the face of uncertainty abroad, there is always one thing we can be certain of and that is that the men and women of our armed forces are the bravest, most capable soldiers in the world.

Last week one of those brave and capable heroes, Navy Petty Officer First Class Amilcar Rodriguez, of Avon, was awarded the Silver Star.

Petty Officer Rodriguez was serving as a Navy corpsman, or medic, on November 6, 2009 in Bala Murghab in Afghanistan when a Marine and two Afghan soldiers in his team were shot and wounded by an enemy sniper. Under extreme duress, Rodriguez picked up a weapon, returned fire and killed two enemy insurgents. He then rushed to the location of the wounded Marine and began dragging him to safety until he was personally shot three times by the enemy. When other Marines rescued Rodriguez and his colleague, he instructed them how to treat his wounded colleague and then assisted in the treatment of other wounded Marines despite his injuries.

The heroism exhibited by Petty Officer Rodriguez, a 1998 graduate of Avon High School, is an amazing example of the kind of selfless dedication of the men and women serving our country around the world. I’ll never know how it feels to serve in combat and I pray my young son grows up in a world more peaceful than the one we live in today. But I know I feel better about our nation’s future knowing we have outstanding men and women like Petty Officer Rodriguez defending our country. On the ninety-third anniversary of the creation of the Silver Star, take a moment to be proud that one of its newest recipients is a hero from Connecticut.