Two Marines who survived a bloody ambush in eastern Afghanistan in September 2009 will receive the Navy Cross on Friday for heroism, Marine officials said.Capt. Ademola D. Fabayo and Staff Sgt. Juan J. Rodriguez-Chavez will be pinned with the nationÂ’s second highest award for valor in a ceremony at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, near Quantico, Va. They were members of Marine Embedded Training Team 2-8, which was pinned down on Sept. 8, 2009, in an early-morning ambush in Ganjgal, a village near the Pakistan border in violent Kunar province.
Fabayo, then a first lieutenant, is credited with pushing into a kill zone on foot and engaging enemy at close range with his M4 carbine. He braved heavy enemy fire to carry wounded Army Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Westbrook several hundred meters, treated wounded Afghan forces that his unit was training and took the gunnerÂ’s position in a gun truck with three other service members as they drove into the kill zone to recover the bodies of three Marines and a corpsman killed in the battle.
Rodriguez-Chavez was assigned to the unitÂ’s security element during the ambush. Under heavy fire, he drove a gun truck into the kill zone three times to cover the withdrawal of the training team and partnered Afghan forces. He then made a fourth trip into the deepest part of the kill zone in another truck to recover the bodies of the fallen Marines and corpsman, positioning his vehicle to shield fellow service members from the intense fire as they left the vehicle to retrieve the bodies.
In October, the Marine Corps recommended that the gunner with Rodriguez-Chavez, former Cpl. Dakota Meyer, receive the Medal of Honor, the nationÂ’s highest award for valor, sources with knowledge of the award process told Marine Corps Times. He is credited with charging into the kill zone repeatedly on foot to find the missing Marines, who had been shot to death and stripped of their weapons. No decision on his award has been announced.
The casualties recovered that day were Gunnery Sgts. Edwin “Wayne” Johnson and Aaron Kenefick, 1st Lt. Michael Johnson and Hospitalman 3rd Class James Layton. They each received the Bronze Star with V posthumously last September for working together after they were pinned down to hold off the enemy, allowing a group of Afghan troops they were training to rejoin a larger group of coalition troops nearby.
At least eight Afghan troops and an interpreter working with the Americans that day also were killed, according to military documents outlining the battle. Westbrook died in October 2009 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington due to medical complications from his wounds.
The training team, out of Okinawa, Japan, was pinned down without artillery and air support for hours by well entrenched insurgents armed with assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades and machine guns, prompting a joint Army-Marine military investigation.
Conducted by Army Col. Richard Hooker and Marine Col. James Werth, it determined that “negligent” leadership by three officers at nearby Forward Operating Base Joyce contributed “directly to the loss of life which ensued.” They refused direct calls for help from U.S. forces on the ground and failed to notify higher commands that they had troops in contact with enemy, the investigation found. The officers were members of Task Force Chosin, a unit comprising soldiers from 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, out of Fort Drum, N.Y.
In February, Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Army officials told him that two of the three officers ultimately received reprimands, a likely career killer.