Knee Deep in the Hooah!

Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli presents the Distinguished Service Cross to Staff Sgt. Christopher B. Waiters Oct. 23 during a ceremony at Soldiers Field House.
Photo by Phil Sussman

After being struck by an IED in Baqubah, Iraq, a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle immediately caught fire with its occupants still inside. Spc. Christopher Waiters, a senior medic assigned to 5-20 Inf. attempts to climb into the burning BFV to rescue a Soldier trapped in the vehicle after he had treated and safe-guarded two other casualties back to his Stryker Medical Evacuation Vehicle. Photo by U.S. Army

Meet Staff Sgt. Christopher Waiters:

Soldier earns rare honor for heroic actions in Iraq

BY Don Kramer
Oct 24, 2008

FORT LEWIS, Wash. – The deep boom of an explosion shook the ground and awoke Staff Sgt. Christopher Waiters from sleep on April 5, 2007. The 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division Soldier had bedded down seconds before at the end of a nine-hour guard-duty shift in Old Baqubah.

A vehicle-borne improvised explosive device had detonated on a street nearby, engulfing a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and its crew in flames,

That insurgent attack led to the events that culminated in Waiters’ receiving a Distinguished Service Cross, only the 17th awarded since the war on terrorism began and the first to a Fort Lewis-based Soldier.

The DSC is the Army’s second highest award given for “extraordinary heroism … while engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing or foreign force,”