1 Geronimos earn Valorous Unit Award

  • Published
  • By Army Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Smith
  • 4-25th ABCT Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  The 1st Battalion (Airborne), 501st Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, received recognition with a Valorous Unit Award to honor its service for a 12-month deployment which began in February, 2009 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in the Paktika province of Afghanistan.

The VUA is the second highest unit decoration that can be bestowed upon a U.S. Army unit, and it is awarded to units which display extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy of the United States.

During the deployment, the 1-501st Inf. was named Task Force 1 Geronimo, and it was assigned to Regional Command-East as part of the International Security Assistance Force. Its mission was to conduct counter-insurgency operations while supervising governance, development and agriculture projects in coordination with Afghanistan's government.

The Geronimo Battalion earned the VUA in a vast and rugged region of Afghanistan which was fortified with insurgents and Taliban enemy forces. The unit engaged in combat with the enemy hundreds of times during their deployment. Seldom a day passed without troops in contact.

Several paratroopers who were with the unit then are still at JBER. One such Soldier, Sgt. 1st Class Robert Theus, a fire support noncommissioned officer at 4-25 ABCT's headquarters has served three combat tours with the 1-501st Inf. during the last 10 years while assigned in Alaska.

"When the brigade stood up, the 501st was really the backbone of the brigade," Theus said. "If you were in the 501st, you always thought you were in the best battalion.
"The 2009 deployment was a tough deployment," he continued. "I was with Delaware Company at Combat Outpost Narizah, and our company was split up into just two platoons there. We were extremely undermanned for a COP, and we had to run daily patrols. On top of that, we did a lot of air assault missions that would take us away for like a month at a time. It was an extremely stressful deployment.

"I couldn't imagine any other company and any other battalion dealing with it quite as well as Delaware and the 501st, just because of the history of adversity the unit has endured," Theus said. "It was really tough. We did a couple missions that were the most intense I've seen during my deployments.

"The battalion definitely deserved the award. It was a challenging deployment. We lost a lot of people. It was an extremely high-tempo deployment, especially in the summer. Everyone was always outside of the wire doing something, somewhere."

"The quality of the training and the leadership of the people in the battalion and the company really showed. It was a good place to be if something bad was going to happen," Theus said.

Army Lt. Col. Clint Baker, now assigned to Headquarters Detachment, U.S. Army Alaska, was the 1-501st Inf. battalion commander during the 2009 to 2010 deployment.
"In retrospect, the mission was daunting to put it mildly," the officer said. "We took over a long-neglected province that U.S. forces had not been in for several fighting seasons. District level governance was almost non-existent. The provincial level was not much
better.

"We had three companies to defeat a growing insurgency in an area half the size of Connecticut," Baker continued. "Many of the districts we took over had already been lost to the insurgency.

"Paratroopers had a very tall order to say the least," he said. "In my mind, this Valorous Unit Award is recognition for the paratroopers who really made a difference in Afghanistan. The troops at company level and below who, day in and day out, did the hard, dangerous and often thankless work that was required ... who faced deadly [improvised explosive devices] and contact with the enemy on a daily basis.
"This is also for our wounded," Baker said. "Many of them seriously wounded, who will never be whole again. This Valorous Unit Award is for our heroes who didn't make it back with us ... 1st Lt. Brian Bradshaw, Staff Sgt. Clay Bowen, Spc. Morris Walker, Staff Sgt. Kurt Curtiss, Spc. Matthew Martinek, 2nd Lt. Darryn Andrews, and Staff Sgt. Michael Murphrey."

The 1-501st Inf. adds the Valorous Unit Award to an extensive history of valor and service to the U.S. Army.

The 501st Inf. regimental honors include citations from four U.S. wars.
For exceptional service in World War II, the unit has two Presidential Unit Citations for campaigns in Normandy and Bastogne, a French Croix de Guerre with Palm, a Netherlands Orange Lanyard, a Belgian Croix de Guerre 1940 with Palm and a Belgian Fourragere.

Vietnam awards include three Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm for deployments in 1968, 1968-1969, and 1971, and a Republic of Vietnam Civil Action Honor Medal, First Class 1968-1970.

A Valorous Unit Award was bestowed upon the 501st for a difficult deployment to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2006 to 2008.

The 1-501st Inf. has deployed three times to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom for which it earned an OEF streamer for its deployment in 2003 to 2004, and this most recent award, the Valorous Unit Award, for its service in 2009 to 2010 in the Paktika province.

The 1-501st Inf. recently redeployed from Afghanistan in October 2012 from a 10-month long deployment. This deployment was another challenging and difficult combat tour to which another Valorous Unit Award has been submitted.

Among all of its history and achievements, the 501st Inf. was formed from the U.S. Army's parachute test platoon, and it lays claim as the U.S. Army's first Airborne Infantry unit.