As enemy forces ambushed the front of his convoy, and with
explosions going off on the road ahead of him, Navy Hospital Corpsman
Joshua Chiarini could have remained in his vehicle and waited for the
action to pass. Instead, the petty officer bolted from his truck and
joined the battle. His ensuing gallantry resulted in a Silver Star and
the recovery of several wounded Marines from the line of fire, saving
their lives.
Many of Chiarini’s missions took place in Al Anbar province, a hotbed of violence in early 2006. The morning of February 10 started out like so many others – with a patrol for Chiarini, a combat medic spending his third tour of duty with the 1st Platoon, 2nd Marine Division. It soon became clear the day would be anything but routine. A roadside bomb hit the front Humvee in the convoy. The vehicle sped out of the kill zone and its occupants escaped and took up defensive positions against the attacking force. A second blast detonated in the area where the four Marines and one interpreter stood, which was followed by heavy small-arms fire in their direction, causing injuries. Chiarini’s Humvee, the third in the convoy, remained far behind the damaged truck and Marines. Clouds of smoke and nonexistent radio communications blocked the pinned down Marines from the rest of the convoy. Realizing his comrades lay in harm’s way, Chiarini jumped out of the truck and sprinted 100 meters to tend to the injured men, dodging insurgent fire the entire way.
One by one, Chiarini helped guide each person to safety. Chiarini led the interpreter, who had a mangled arm, to a secure Humvee. He guided the M-16 fire of a blinded Marine toward the insurgents. Chiarini then made three separate trips from the Humvee to the battlefield to treat and retrieve each of the wounded, all while braving a high volume of incoming rounds and laying down cover fire. For much of the time, Chiarini applied aid to the wounded with one arm, while providing suppressive fire with the other. After moving the team to safety, Chiarini stayed on the battlefield and unleashed M-16 fire at the enemy forces. He continued the fight as reinforcements arrived, eliminating several insurgents.
This was not the only mission that placed Chiarini in harm’s way. His team was repeatedly fired on by snipers. 30 of the convoys he rode in were struck by roadside bombs and three suicide bombers. The constant danger makes it all the more impressive that of the 100 Marines treated by Chiarini, none lost his or her life.
On October 22, 2007, Chiarini received the Silver Star medal in the Rhode Island statehouse. He presently serves at Naval Health Clinic New England in Newport, RI.
From the Navy Times
‘Screw it. I am going forward’
On the morning of Feb. 10, 2006, Chiarini — who was with Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit — was riding shotgun in the third vehicle of a Marine patrol in Anbar when a roadside bomb detonated near the lead vehicle.
That vehicle sped out of the kill zone, and four of its five occupants — the gunner stayed in the turret to provide cover fire — ran out to take up defensive positions. At that moment, a much larger explosion ripped into the dismounted Marines. An Iraqi interpreter, called Kenny by the Marines, had his arm nearly severed in the second blast. Then insurgents about 400 meters away pinned the Marines down with small-arms fire.
But Chiarini knew none of this. After the first explosion, the convoy had become separated, with the corpsman in one of two vehicles in the back half of the convoy. A second, more heavily armored Humvee was about 100 meters in front, and the lead Humvee carrying the injured Marines was 100 meters farther up. The scene ahead was blocked by dense smoke, and he could not hear above the din of small-arms fire and exploding hand grenades. He heard nothing over the radio.
When his less experienced driver — Chiarini was then on his second tour in Iraq — balked at driving forward into the melee, Chiarini grabbed his rifle and medical kit and ran forward as insurgents fired at him from rooftops.
“He just hesitated. I said, ‘Screw it. I am going forward.’ ” he recalled. “I felt like corpsmen that had gone before me in earlier wars were there. I could feel their hands on my shoulders as I worked.”
Dodging enemy fire, Chiarini ran 200 meters to the wounded Marines. One by one, he directed three of them to limp toward the armored Humvee, while he followed them, laying down covering fire with his M16. Then, with one hand, he carried the more seriously wounded interpreter to the rear, turning his body sideways at times to lay down cover fire.
When they reached the rear of the armored Humvee, Chiarini began treating their injuries
About five minutes later, a Marine quick-reaction force arrived from a nearby base. Once its corpsmen began treating the wounded, Chiarini grabbed his rifle again, killing several insurgents, including a 12-year-old boy who was spotted with a detonator.
All of the wounded Marines survived; a few weeks later, Chiarini ran into one of them, a corporal nicknamed Redhead, at a Camp Lejeune, N.C., pool hall. Earning the Silver Star was special, Chiarini said, but he got the most meaningful tribute he ever received for his work in Iraq not at the statehouse, but at 8 Ball Pizza more than a year ago.
“Doc, I knew everything was going to be OK when I saw you come through the smoke,” the Marine told him.
From the Providence Journal
In presenting the Silver Star to Chiarini, Marine Brig. Gen. David H. Berger said Chiarini displayed a type of courage virtually impossible for people on the sidelines of war to understand.
“He reacted the way he did for one simple reason: to take care of the Marine at his right and the Marine to his left. Simple as that…He would not let his fellow warriors down. He used himself to protect his comrades. We can not ask of anything more.”
Chiarini’s commanding officer, Lt. Colonel Andrew Smith, thanked Chiarini’s attending four grandparents, three sisters — one of whom served in Iraq with Army — and his parents, Linda and Thomas Chiarini, for raising and loving such a noble man. And for others like him, he said, who “look down the muzzle of the enemy because their nation asks them to.”
