CITATION TO ACCOMPANY THE AWARD OF
THE BRONZE STAR MEDAL
(WITH VALOR)
TO
JACOB D. SUTTON
Airman First Class Jacob D. Sutton distinguished himself by heroism as M-249 gunner while engaged in ground combat against an enemy of the United States near Jabal Jawan, Iraq on 29 August 2004. On that date, Airman Sutton provided convoy security for fourteen military and contractor sustainment vehicles. He sustained second degree burns and heavy bruising when his gun truck was attacked with an improvised explosive device. Airman Sutton quickly recovered and climbed down from the burning vehicle and ran to assist his truck conimander who was thrown out of the vehicle and seriously injured. He immediately administered first aid, ripping the sleeve from his own uniform to bandage the staff sergeant's profusely bleeding legs. Once the lead combat life saver took over and with complete disregard for his own safety, Airman Sutton entered the passenger side of the burning vehicle to extract his driver. Recognizing the driver had been killed and hearing .50 and 5.56 caliber ammunition detonating, he exited the vehicle. Airman Sutton climbed back into the rear of the vehicle to dismount his M-249 squad' automatic weapon and salvage the ammunition. As over one thousand rounds continued to cook off in the cab of the vehicle, Airman Sutton threw the weapon and ammunition to safety. He then quickly dismounted the vehicle and ran to assist another Airman in dragging the truck commander to safety. Again, with complete disregard for his own personal safety, he returned to the burning vehicle, along with three staff sergeants, to extract the driver's body before it was consumed by fire. After several failed attempts, the convoy commander ordered the Airmen to cease their recovery efforts and take immediate cover. His courageous and selfless acts in the face of danger helped save the truck commander's life, protected his fellow Airmen and preserved a critical weapon and ammunition. By his heroic actions and unselfish dedication to duty, Airman Sutton has reflected great credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.
Pictured here with his very proud Grandfather.
L-R: TSgt Kristopher Hanson, Ft Leonard Wood, Distinguished Grad,
TSgt Rob McMillan, Scott AFB,
MSgt David Belcher, Ft Leonard Wood,
MSgt Willie Ford, Gunter NCOA,
MSgt Andre Tompkins, Gunter NCOA,
TSgt Tyrell Carter, Andrews AFB.
Eric R. Zupanc, TSgt, USAF , Peterson AFB CO 80914
A former 2T1 a picture of my recent promotion to TSgt. After PCA'ing to the
USAF Honor Guard and then retraining into Information Management, I will now be retraining again,
this time into Operations Intelligence. I'm still very proud of my Vehicle Ops roots and I go back to
the website often. A long time ago pictures were posted of my selection to SrA BTZ (Nov 01, Page 4)
when I was stationed at RAF Mildenhall. Thank you for all that you've done and keep the page going strong!
Kuwait and then up to Tallil AB for the next ten months of line haul duty...plus gun trucks on the side.
Big Army says we won't be doing the latter but all of our training here has focused around the gun trucks).I've attached a current photo. I appreciate everything that my brother and sister transporters are doing
on the Air Force side of the house to move 'stuff' around Iraq and I am really looking forward to
contributing to the effort again as well.Chuck CranfordSPC, TC