Excerpts from article published in San Diego Union-Tribune on 1/7/2014:

AWARDED  SILVER  STAR

CARRIED  TEAM  LEADER  DISTANCE  OF  3  FOOTBALL  FIELDS

Staff Sergeant Timothy Williams was awarded the Silver Star as well as the Purple Heart at an awards ceremony in Camp Pendleton.  A star running back at his tiny Michigan high school, SSGT Williams hoisted his injured team leader over his shoulder and ran the length of three football fields as gun muzzles flashed all around.  Finally they reached the landing zone and the medevac helicopter.  His buddy, leg shattered by a rifle bullet, was saved.

On Tuesday that team leader stood by at Camp Pendleton as Williams was awarded the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest combat medal, for his heroism in Afghanistan.

“You wonder, how does a person get that type of courage to make the right decisions on a day like that,” said LTGEN John Toolan, Commanding General of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, who pinned the ribbon on Williams’ chest.  SSGT Jason Pennock is the team leader whose life Williams saved.  The two traded good-natured jabs after the ceremony.  “He should have kept up the fight and not worried about me,” said Pennock, who still walks with a cane.  “But the fact that he carried me out, and then continued to fight, is well above and beyond.”  SSGT Williams, a 33-year-old father of two, countered that he learned everything he knows from Pennock.  Plus, he realized his buddy might lose that leg.  “There’s no way you could quit on somebody like Jason,” he said.  “He’s kind of hard to deal with sometimes, but he really knows what he is doing.”

It was July 2012 and the Marines were transitioning from doing the fighting themselves to training Afghan soldiers to eventually take over.  Williams, Pennock and three other Marines were on patrol with 11 Afghans, headed to question some locals about a weapons cache.  Out of nowhere about 35 Taliban fighters ambushed them.  About two hours into the fight Pennock was hit.  The bullet knocked him into a canal.  He tied his own tourniquet to stop the bleeding but it was all he could do to hold his head above the water.  SSGT Williams ran 60 yards over open ground to get to his team leader.  Dragging him out of the ditch he picked up Pennock’s 190-pound frame.  That weight, along with the nearly 100 pounds of Williams’ own gear, made the slog to the helicopter a back-breaking prospect.  “It was exhausting,” the Silver Star recipient said.  “It was probably one of the hardest things I ever did.”  Afterward, SSGT Williams from Michigan returned to the ambush and took charge.  The Marine Corps credits him with killing five Taliban shooters and then moving the team to join another U.S. force pinned down about a mile and a half away.  The medal citation calls it “bold leadership, extraordinary initiative and undaunted courage.”

Williams’ mother said her oldest son, the first of five brothers, always worked hard to excel in their small town of Hudson, Michigan.  A high school wrestler and football running back, he was the county’s leading rusher his senior year.  A bit shy, he hated that as football team captain he was expected to speak at pep rallies, his mom said.  “This is no surprise, because everyone knows Tim was always trying to be a good kid.  Just a nice kid.  And he always did his best at everything he did,” said his mom.

Timothy Williams joined the Navy in May 2000, after his first year of college.  His mother wasn’t happy.  She wanted him to get a degree.  But Williams couldn’t find his way in academia.  He became a Navy search-and-rescue swimmer, serving on the destroyer USS STOUT.  Four years later he enlisted in the Marine Corps as he felt his talents would be better used on the ground.  Williams serves with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion at Camp Pendleton.  On Tuesday, Williams received not only a Silver Star but also a Purple Heart for combat injuries.  And, he got a contract to stay in uniform as LTGEN Toolan conducted the reenlistment ceremony on the parade ground as Williams’ battalion looked on.  “I am delighted that you are enlisting for four more, so we can get a whole lot more out of you,” Toolan said. 

SSGT Williams said he will deploy again this year.

AWARDS AND MEDALS:

Silver Star

Purple Heart

Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medal

Combat Action Ribbon

Navy Unit Commendation Ribbon

Meritorious Unit Commendation

USMC Good Conduct Medal

Navy Good Conduct Medal

National Defense Service Medal

Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal

Afghanistan Campaign Medal

Iraq Campaign Medal

Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal

Global War on Terrorism Service Medal

Navy Sea Service Deployment Ribbon

NATO Medal

NATO Iraqi Sudan Afghanistan Ribbon

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)