JBER Public Affairs
5/30/2013 - JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- Courage is a word, a belief, a portrait. It is invisible, yet has many faces. It can have the face of a child learning to ride a bicycle without the training wheels. It may be the face of a person conquering their fear of heights. In this case, it portrays the face of a man who has deployed behind enemy lines.
Tech. Sgt. Dustin Lambries is the very portrait of courage.
Lambries is an explosive ordnance disposal technician with the 673d Civil Engineer Squadron at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. He is also a husband and a father of three. Lambries grew up in a small town in Grandville, Mich., and entered the Air Force in 1999.
"I always knew I wanted to join the military," Lambries said. "I joined the Air Force because they had the coolest recruiter."
Why choose EOD?
"Blowing stuff up all the time, it kind of spoke to me," Lambries joked.
As an EOD technician, Lambries' job is to deal with improvised explosive devices in a controlled fashion. He is trained to employ tools like Composition C-4 explosives, robots and classified techniques to dispose of explosives, whether they are decommissioned missiles on base or roadside bombs in the field.
Lambries deployed to Afghanistan from September 2012 to March 2013 in support of joint and multinational operations in the Helmand Province.
"My deployment was a non-typical EOD deployment," Lambries explained. "A typical one for that unit would be in a truck doing route clearances, clearing IEDs on the roads. They had special mission sets that our expertise was requested on for Special Forces units."
During his deployment, Lambries and his EOD team were embedded with the United Kingdom's 12th Brigade Reconnaissance Force, call sign Finder 10. Their mission was to locate, strike and deny lethal aid to Taliban forces on an island in the Helmand River.
"Every mission we went on was usually an air assault," Lambries said. "A lot of shooting was involved and a lot of avoiding IEDs where we could. If we could not, that was what I was there for."
His team inserted via helicopter with the elements of Finder 10 onto the island at 2 a.m. under the cover of darkness.
"We would get in behind what would apparently be the enemy lines and land on the opposite side of it," Lambries said. "So we would be in their home and stir up the hornets' nest and then get intel on what had happened."
Upon hitting the ground, his unit quickly located one of the targeted mission objectives; an improvised explosives production facility with more than 200 pounds of homemade explosives. As they swept the perimeter of the compound they encountered two enemy scouts and engaged them, killing one and capturing the other. This was only the start of what would turn out to be a day-long engagement with a well-coordinated and well-equipped force of battle-hardened Taliban that outnumbered Lambries' unit.
"It was a lot of shooting," Lambries said. "There were a lot of firefights."
As day broke, Lambries' team detonated the explosives, destroying the production facility and resumed their pursuit of mission objectives. As his team swept the remainder of the island, they encountered a cache of enemy rifles as well as a large, unexploded artillery projectile. After destroying the enemy weapons cache and the unexploded ordnance, his team set up with the unit command element at a staging location while they prepared to follow the remainder of the Finder 10 elements across the Helmand River.
As they waited, his element began taking highly-concentrated, accurate enemy fire from a well-organized and motivated platoon-sized enemy element in a compound approximately 25 meters away. As the enemy continued to engage his element with machine gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades, Lambries began returning fire as Finder 10 elements flanked the compound and ended the engagement.
"How did I get here? What am I doing? Where are my guys? Am I looking in the right direction?" Lambries said he thought during the firefight.
As they continued to clear the compound, an enemy hand grenade exploded, severely wounding two British soldiers. Medical evacuation procedures began as the forward elements once again came under heavy and sustained enemy fire from other neighboring compounds.
"You get tight-knit as a group," Lambries said. "To see them getting shot at or getting hit, you get irate. It brings the fight out and just escalates from there. It is definitely an adrenaline rush."
Guarding the very end of the formation, Lambries laid down continuous cover fire, allowing Finder 10 to move across open terrain and seek cover inside a compound. These actions allowed the safe movement and evacuation of the two wounded
Soldiers.
Lambries remained under fire for more than an hour as they bounded to safety, with rounds striking within six inches and engaging enemy forces as near as 25 meters. These actions resulted in four insurgent deaths, three wounded insurgents and one enemy detainee.
Throughout the course of his deployment Lambries displayed immense poise and skill even while under extreme pressure. For his actions throughout the deployment, he was awarded his second Bronze Star Medal, the Army Achievement Medal and was nominated for Portraits in Courage.
"It was hard for me to come up with something to put in for the story that goes into the nomination," Lambries said. "I have mixed feelings. I'm proud and very embarrassed, thanks to my family."
As courageous as his actions were that day, Lambries recognizes the efforts of his comrades and fellow EOD members who are deployed.
"The guys that are back are being recognized," Lambries said. "The guys that are over there are having hard days, difficult days and terrible days. They don't get the recognition that they are earning right now, so keep those guys that are there now in your thoughts and prayers."
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