October 29, 2025 • 36 mins
Edward Byers became fascinated with the military - and Navy SEALs in particular - through books and movies in his younger years. He joined the U.S. Navy and, just a few months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, began SEAL training. His service would then bring him face to face with our enemies on multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Byers takes us through the mentally and physically grueling experience of BUD/s training to become a SEAL and his deployments to Iraq. And Byers walks us through the harrowing and costly mission to rescue an American doctor that resulted in Byers receiving the military's highest honor.
In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Byers takes us through the mentally and physically grueling experience of BUD/s training to become a SEAL and his deployments to Iraq. And Byers walks us through the harrowing and costly mission to rescue an American doctor that resulted in Byers receiving the military's highest honor.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumba's. Our guest in
this edition is retired US Navy Master Chief Petty Officer
Edward Byers. He served nearly two decades as a Navy
Seal and received the Medal of Honor for his actions
in Afghanistan in December twenty twelve. Edward Byers was born
(00:32):
and raised in Ohio. There had not been a strong
military legacy in his family, but he became fascinated by
the military and Navy seals, in particular through popular culture.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
There was no definitive reason why I joined him. It
was because the movies like Navy Seals had just come out,
books about seals in Vietnam, it started coming out, and
it was just fascinating me. It was really cool technology.
I wasn't allowed to own a gun growing up. I
never hunted when I growing up, and so watching this
stuff though as a young man on TV and reading
(01:06):
these books, it was just fascinating to me.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I think that that was the catalysts.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Buyers enjoyed a largely unstructured childhood, so joining the military
brought some major adjustments for him, but perhaps his best
early decision in the military was to listen to his mother.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
In the beginning.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So I first joined I became a Navy corman at
the advice of my mother, who said, you should do
something that you can use in the civilian world in
case this military venture does not work out for you.
And so I actually took her advice, and that's how
I became a Navy corman. But the Navy Corman rating
(01:46):
was closed off to seals, so I ended up, at
the advice of some of my peers, ended up volunteering
to go with the Marine Corps. So I became a
Navy doc with a grunt unit to two golf company.
And I will say that that is when I had
my first dose of reality of becoming a professional soldier
(02:10):
or sailor, because they it was much different than the
lifestyle that I had grown up with. Very regimented. It was,
there was no talking back. It was you do what
I say, you don't question it. You're a junior ranking member.
And that's just the way things had worked out, and
(02:32):
so I quickly had to adapt the environment to become successful.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
As a newly minted Navy corman. Buyer's first deployment took
him to the Middle East, around the time of a
major terrorist event. Despite the bombing of the USS coal,
Buyers says terrorism really didn't get discussed much on that assignment.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
My first deployment with the Marines was in two thousand
and it was with the twenty six meters. It was
my first deployment of my military career, and it was
the deployment in which the USS coal was blown up
and we were doing gator circles basically off the coast
of Israel, trying to understand what it is we're going
(03:15):
to do. From a Marine Corps perspective and a show force.
We didn't know what had happened, and I had no
idea about terrorism or out CADA even at that point
in history or life. It was just not something we discussed.
It was more big military movement components, you know, helping
(03:36):
out host nation or partner nation forces and doing any
sort of humanitarian aid aspects, which is a lot of
what Navy Marine you know inbarked Marine forces do on
deployments around the world, But we had not any insight
into terrorism at that point.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Not long after that deployment, Buyers decided to pursue his
long standing dream of becoming a Navy seal, and he
vividly remembers getting the news that he was invited to
Bud's training.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
About two weeks later, we had moved out into the
field on base for some preparation for potential deployment training.
And it was a scene that I envisioned watching like
band of Brothers.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
I was.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
We had just got to know in this twenty mile
forced march rock into the field and I was working
on one of my marine's feet, fixing their blisters, and
I hear this voice calling out going dock buyers, dock buyers,
dock buyers, and you know, we're very aggressive, you know
(04:48):
at that age, you know, scream out like what do
you want him over here? And it comes up and
he was a guy delivering mail, and it was a
scene like out of that you would see. I got it,
like I said, band of brothers. And he hands me
this piece of mail and so I finish up my
marines feet. I opened it up and it was my
(05:09):
request chit that was approved at ten buds. And so
this was right after nine to eleven, And it was
shortly after that a couple months later I got my
official orders, packed up our bags and we moved all
the way to San Diego to start my training.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
BUDS or seal training is the most intense anywhere in
the world. And if that weren't enough, Buyers and his
class arrived in Coronado, California, shortly after nine to eleven,
knowing that they were preparing to go to war. He
says what followed was unlike anything else he ever experienced.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
There is no way to describe what BUDS is like.
You are cold, wet, sandy, and miserable for eight months
to nine months, and that's if you make it all
the way through without getting injured or getting rolled back.
We started off with two hundred people plus in our class.
(06:05):
We came out of a Hell Week with a very
large number of people. I think it was well and
near ninety people, and we graduated with only I think
twenty three or twenty four original members of our class,
so it was a ninety percent reduction. I happened to
(06:28):
be one of those original members, so the psychological impacts
and the physical impacts of that are second to none.
I fractured my tailbone a couple of days before Hell
Week started, so I went through Hell Week with a
fractured tailbone. I wasn't able to do sit ups or
anything like that. I was colder than I've ever been
(06:51):
in my life, even despite the fact that it was
the towards the end of the summer when we were
going through our training, and there were times when you
have a you know, come to Jesus moment and go,
can you physically make it.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Through this type of stuff?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
And I really have to say that every time I
got to that point in training where can I keep going?
Is when I reflected back on my faith and I
would say a prayer and it said, give me a
sign that this is something I'm supposed to be doing
or that I can continue. And I have to say
there was a couple of times when I specifically made
(07:32):
that request that within a matter of just you know,
fifteen twenty seconds, we got the call from instructors to
take a extended break because they had they knew they
were they were pushing our class to the limit, and
it was, you know, within the time that they needed to.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Give us a break to recover.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And that is really what kept us going, because not
only was it physically draining, you have your own own mental,
you know, internal thoughts to it. Nine to eleven had
just happened, and so the instructors were trying to create
an environment that was unforgiving, and so the verbal components
to it that come from the instructor side just made
(08:16):
you think that you were the lowest piece of thing
in the world and that you didn't matter at all,
And so to wrestle with your internal thoughts, and then
as a class, you know, from an instructive perspective, you're
thinking that they hate you to the end degree. And
then the physical requirements as they get tougher and tougher
throughout training.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Is just something that.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Makes that training extremely unique and helps prepare you for
the long term aspects of continued war and the resiliency
component behind it. Because ultimately the takeaway is, buds, it
is not the heart thing in the world. The hardest
(09:01):
thing in the world is to say I want to
do this lifestyle for the next twenty years, the three
hundred days away from home, you know, the dozen deployments
to war zones, watching you know, friends die and teammates die,
and all the trials and tribulations that happen with that,
and so it's the closest thing they can do to
(09:24):
mimic the effects of warfare, and that part there is
what I really I'm grateful for because it embedded the
commitment and to desire and the resiliency components that I
would need to do throughout the rest of my career.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Buds training lasts several months and it tests every ounce
of your physical, mental, and emotional strength. But for buyers,
as grueling as the test was, that just made completing
the challenge that much sweeter.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
My biggest sense of pride and joy, I think really
came at the end of Hell Week because that was
the culmination of my entire upbringing of wanting to become
a seal and knowing that that was, at least in
my mind, the hurdle that was going to have to
(10:18):
Can you make it through Hell Week? It's five and
a half days. We had three hours of sleep. You
run well over one hundred miles with boats and telephone poles,
and it's pure exhaustion. You don't sleep for the first
you know, three days, that right there is it's really hard,
(10:38):
you know, processing that.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
So there's a video that I still have.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Fortunately, back in the day when there was really no
video because we didn't have cell phones of our the
commanding officer coming over.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
The BERM.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Which is in you know, Coronado is where the bases
and with the American flag and curing our hell week
class on Friday morning. And after he got done saying
your class is secured, something happened And I'm the only
person that did this, that just let out this roar,
and the roar probably lasted ten plus seconds, and the
(11:18):
entire class is turning their heads looking at me, and
I was so I was so proud in that moment
because I was a kid from small town America that
had no insight into what the military was.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
And you know, Navy Seals.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
At the top echelon of our military units, and BUDS
is renowned for being the hardest training in the military.
And I had just accomplished something that I would say,
outside of a handful of people in my life, nobody
(11:59):
thought I can.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Do in just a moment. Edward Byers takes us on
his first two Seal deployments to Iraq and the moment
that steered him in a new direction, and later Buyers
details his actions in Afghanistan that resulted in him receiving
the Medal of Honor. Our guest is retired Master Chief
Petty Officer Edward Byers. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is
(12:22):
Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
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Speaker 1 (13:24):
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest this
week is retired Navy Seal and Medal of Honor recipient
Edward Byers. After completing his many months of seal training,
Buyers and his Seal team were sent to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
But the deployment was not what he expected when he
became a seal.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
So our first deployment with Seal Team four was to Bagdad, Iraq.
And it was right after this is two thousand and five,
and what had.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Started to take place was we already had the Battle.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Of Fallujah, which is, you know, Fallujah is not that
far from Baghdad, I think, I believe the year prior,
and we had picked up the responsibility of being the
Protective Service Detail or the PSD units for the interim
Government of Iraq.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
And so my first.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Half of the deployment was spent being on the Deputy
Prime Minister's Protective Service Detail, and about halfway through our deployment,
we the US government for some reason decided to drop
his Protective Service Detail and we then shifted over to
(14:57):
Baghdad International Airport to start doing direct action missions in
and around Baghdad and mainly in Solder City, and this
was really the rise of that militia group and b
was known at the time as the most dangerous place
(15:18):
in the world, and so we started doing direct action
missions in and around there till the end of our deployment. Fortunately,
nobody was hurt and we didn't We did a lot
of missions and we arrested a lot of people, but
we didn't remove anyone off the battlefield, which was a
(15:39):
very strange thing coming off of that deployment of going okay,
I've read about Navy seals in combat, especially from Vietnam,
and the impact that they had, which was massive for
how small their unit size was.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
And here I was.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I just spent nearly seven months in Baghdad, operating in
the most dangerous city in the world, and I went
through an entire deployment on the fire on my rifle.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
But Buyers is quick to add that the security work
he and his team did for the Iraqi government was
critically important, and while it's not what he expected to
be doing, he's proud of the work that was done.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
This was our first deployment and there was a lot
of things that were new to us. We had a
very dynamic deployment. It was a very much a proud
sense of the fact that we were doing protective service
detail for the interim government of Iraq, so we were
having strategic impact. Keeping these people alive meant everything to
(16:40):
us government. So as we were moving our detail around
inside the Green Zone and then out into various parts
around the country, you know, we flew all around the
country with our principle that was very much a sense
of pride and the fact that nothing ever happened to
him meant that we did our job.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
For his second Seal deployment, Buyer's was once again in Iraq.
Late in that assignment, he and other members of his
team were sent to Western Iraq, and it was there,
through the pain of losing a close friend, that Buyers
realized the next goal he wanted to pursue.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Our second deployment ended up coming pretty quick in our minds.
We had went through another workup and now this time
though we had deployed back to in late two thousand
and six, deployed back to Fallujah and another place called Habaniah,
and what we were doing out of there was now
(17:38):
training host nation forces and also doing direct action missions.
About halfway through that deployment, I got asked with a
couple other of my teammates to move out to western
Iraq near the Syria border called Rawa, and we helped
stand up a base out there that was a Marine
(18:01):
Corps base. What had happened on that deployment was the
thing that was an action that changed the.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Course of my life.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Clark Schweddler, Petioser first Class Clark Schweddler was doing a
direct action mission outside of Fallujah when he was fatally wounded.
And Clark was one of my very close friends and teammates,
and that drove the catalysts for me wanting to try
(18:32):
out for Naval Special Warfare Development Group, which is commonly
referred to as Seal Team six. And so that was
in April of two thousand and seven, right at the
very tail end of our deployment. It was also the
mission in which Mike Day, who is the chief pettiofficer
(18:55):
at the time, was caught shot twenty seven times, ended
up walking to the helicopter and it just it just
showed you sometimes you know.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
The tides of war.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
You can get shot one time or shot a couple
dozen times, and you may or may not live, depending
on what God has in store for you that but
Clark's death drove me to want to try out for
dev group and it was really the turning point in
(19:26):
my career with a Naval special war and as a
Navy seal.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Our guest is US Navy retired Master Chief Petty Officer
Edward Byers. He served two decades as a Navy Seal
and received the Medal of Honor for his actions in
Afghanistan in December twenty twelve. When We Come Back, Buyers
takes a step by step on that harrowing mission that
changed his life, and he talks about the painful memories
(19:53):
that will stay with him forever from that mission. I'm
Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles.
I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is retired
to US Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Edward Byers. He
served as a Navy Seal and received the Medal of
Honor for his service in Afghanistan from December twenty twelve.
(20:18):
Before walking us through the events of that fateful day,
Bayer says it's important to remember the context by now
he was on Seal Team six, and just a year earlier,
he had played, in his words, a small role in
the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. But the reason
he was where he was in December twenty twelve was
because of horrific losses that Special Operations suffered in the
(20:43):
summer of twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And then just a handful of months later, on August sixth,
twenty eleven, we had the downing of Extortion seventeen, and
the downing of Extortion seventeen end up becoming the greatest
single loss of life in special operations history, lost thirty
Americans in American Military working dog and in an eerie
nod to the call sign of that helicopter, we lost
(21:08):
seventeen seals, and so in an instant, a third of
one of our units was lost. What ended up happening
out of that was they decided they had to reconstitute
the loss of what was called known as two troop
from a Gold squadron, and so they decided to pull
(21:31):
individuals from other squadrons to reconstitute this lost troop. I
had the honor and privilege of being one of those men,
and I came over from Blue squadron to make up
the new two.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Troop Buyers now shares the mission. He and his team
were assigned on December eighth, twenty twelve, and he takes
us moment by moment through the intense effort to save
an American life.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Well, in early December, we started to get intelligence reporting
that an American doctor had been taken captive. He was
going over to do a doctor's without Borders thing and
had linked up with a few other Afghan doctors and
then come to find out they had turned on them,
and then they turned them over to the Taliban, who
(22:22):
then took him captive, and was more than likely it
was going to use.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Doctor Joseph as a.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
As a bargaining pond to help, you know, release some
captive combatants that the US had. Well, how our mission
came about so quickly was we started to get intelligence
reportings that they were going to get he was going
to get moved over to Pakistan, and typically when that happens,
(22:55):
you're almost for sure going to lose contact with that
person and then the survival rate is going to drastically
start decreasing as time goes on.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
And so our unit.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Spun up on this target we developed the intelligence picture
as fast as possible, and on the night of December eighth,
we launched out of our base and landed about five
hours away and started patrolling into the target. Now, what
we did differently, and it was again a nod back
(23:38):
to our Seal brethren in Vietnam and how they used
to attack targets going through the me condel, the you know,
the hardest way into the targets. We took on the
same approach because the way our target building was positioned
and where we thought the doctor was being held captive
was in a compound.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
That overlooked the entire valley. So there was no way to.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Walk up the front up the valley to the compound
because we despite it being at night and with even
lower loom at once your eyes adjusted, you can see
across the valley plain a day, especially with as many
people as we had and trying to move that those
type of forces.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
But this compound was to the back.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
It was butted up right to the back the bottom
of a mountain side, and so we came up up
the backside to that mountain and then had to walk
down the face of that mountain.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
What we didn't know.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Is because there's only so much you can get from
looking at the and doing route reconnaissance was how steep
it actually was, and there was points where our team
was turned around bouldering down the side of the mountain
and using our ladders to get down from.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Level to level to level.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
There was no clear path to do that, and so
it really cut into our time. When we all finally
got down to the bottom of the bit of the
mountain and we got to our set point, we started
to hear calls of prayer throughout the valley, and in
the very off in the very distance, started to see
the sun started to peek up first light, and so
(25:17):
we knew we were right on the cusp, no more
time to waste.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
It was at that moment.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
That Nick Check, our point man, started to lead out
our patrol and started moving towards the target building, our
area of responsibility. Now we were there with our entire
our entire troop, and the compound had many buildings and
many places that needed to be hit simultaneously, so our
(25:47):
team started to fan out and started taking their areas
of responsibility. Our specific team, Echo team, which was being
let out by Nick Check, moved to our target building
and that we had cessed is where the doctor Joseph
was being held. And so as we started to get
(26:08):
closer to the building, one of the Taliban guards had
come out of the door with his rifle and Nick
Check immediately engaged him, and that started the catalysts of
us rapidly accelerating our prosecution of the target. Nick took
(26:29):
shots on him and began sprinting and moved in such
a fashion that by the time I had a chance
to react and started to maneuver to gain some space
between us in case I had to also shoot, he
was already six to eight feet ahead of me. It
was in instantaneous shots on target to forward progression to
(26:51):
the door to prosecute this building. When we got to
the building, which was you know, only you know, twenty
to thirty feet away at this time the door we
encountered something we had never encountered before on all of
the prior years of doing combat operations. It was wool
blankets that were multi layered and cemented into the doorframe
(27:16):
on opposing sides, and so shots had already been fired,
and in a hostage rescue mission, we had to move
because if they woke up and decided to execute American hostage.
It is mission failure, and we do not do what
it is we're designed to do as a military unit.
And one of our first mission essential task lists is
(27:37):
to do hostage rescue.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
And so.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
We a couple of us hopped on these blankets to
try to rip them out of the door seam, and
they were cemented in so well they couldn't do it.
And it was even after a couple of seconds, it
was we heard our voice from our troop chief, you said,
get the hell inside there, let's go. You know, we're
talking about matters of second. There wasn't a long delay
(28:02):
in time, but seconds were hours in this environment right now.
And so as Nick started to weave his way through,
there was more gunshots. You can't really see what was
happening because you were having to push away multi layers
of blankets, these heavy wolf you know, blankets. And it's
(28:23):
very difficult too because you're getting it's getting hung up
on your gear, your guns, your night vision, all that stuff.
I moved in right behind Nick, and I had stepped
over something or someone moved into my area of responsibility,
which was to the left. And as I came in
and presented my weapon. I saw somebody that was about,
(28:44):
you know, twenty feet away from me also starting to
present a weapon towards me, and I was able to
engage him and make some very clean shots in his
head and dropped him right there. But it was a
matter of just split seconds of him getting shots off
on me versus the other way around. It was at
(29:05):
that time that I noticed somebody scrambling across the floor
that was moving towards those weapons, and by the time
I was able to close with that person, I was
able to lock them down on the ground, pinning them
to the ground with my knees on their shoulders as
I was adjusting my night vision to gain facial recognition.
This entire time, this person is grabbing, trying to reach
(29:28):
for these weapons and grab something, and well, I didn't
know if this was one of the hostages that was
scared and was trying to move because there was no
voices at this time, there was no nothing was being
called out. And it was roughly in that instance that
we began to call out for doctor Joseph, like somebody,
you know, is he in this room?
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Will he say it? And there was no response.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
There was no response, and this is all happening in
just matters of seconds, right, So, after a few more
of these callouts to doctor Joseph, I finally heard this voice,
I'm over here, I'm over here, and it was not
the person I was on top of, and it was
a voice that was coming to from my right hand side,
(30:14):
and so I made the decision to shoot the person
that I was on top of, and whether it killed
him or subdued him enough, I was able to then
jump off of that person and I leapt across the
room and was able to jump on doctor Joseph.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Because there's still shots.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Are now flying throughout this room, and so I jumped
on DoD Joseph protect him with my body armor. It
just happened to be, by the grace of God, that
one of the other taliban was within arm's reach of me,
and I was able to hold Doctor Joseph against me
(30:52):
with body armor and within arm's reach, I was able
to reach over and pin that per against the wall
by their throat. And fortunately what that had done would
just given enough time for the rest of the team
to make it inside and.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Eliminate that threat.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
And so once that threat was eliminated, we went through
doing the standard protocol of you know, asking him if
if he was hurt, ask him if he could you know, walk,
ask him if they had been booby trapped. You know,
he didn't know if they put a suicide vest on
him or if there was a you know, grenade that
(31:36):
was set up ready to do for the pinpull.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
So we did a.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
With a coordination with our EOD explosive check on and
make sure he's okay, and then we started to move him.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
We moved doctor Joseph outside.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
The team successfully rescued doctor Joseph, but that operation came
at a terrible price Mick check whom Buyers mentioned to
repeat and that account of the operation was seriously wounded,
and the desperate effort to save his life was soon underway.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
When we had moved doctor Joseph outside because we were
coming on really quickly for first light and we needed
to get extracted, I had looked over and I saw
that people were working on on Nick, and so I
had asked for a replacement to take over from security
(32:31):
detail on doctor Joseph, and I started going over and
working on Nick and helping our Air Force pair of
rescuemen and started to do a head to tow assessment
on Nick and begin to see what.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
We could do to potentially save his life.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
After the helicopters landed, we quickly got on board and
they took off and for the next forty minutes on
our way back to Bogram, we treated Nick's wounds. We
did interustrious or io device IVS and started CPR on them,
(33:10):
which we rotated through the entire flight. And it was
at the time when we got to the cash you know,
the military hospital on base, that the doctors, you know,
pronounced him dead on the scene.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Unfortunately, Nick was succumbed.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
To you know, he was shot in the head and
there was really not much we could do for him,
but we knew if there was any chance, we owed him.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
That Buyer sees the Medal of Honor as a blessing
and a burden. He loves having a lifetime of opportunities
to talk about why he loves this country and the
values that make us great, but he says it does
require many days away from home after a military career
that also kept him away from his family. But Byers
says he also wears the medal in honor of those
(33:57):
on his teams and his friends. We were lost on
the battlefield.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
But as I talked about in the past.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And how I view being a recipient at the end
of the day, and I'm just a holder of this medal,
and while it's for my personal actions, it is really
really they would never have been able. I would have
never been able to do what I have done if
it wasn't for my entire team as a whole and
(34:27):
how we operated. Nick was an absolute warrior, and he
was fearless and he showed he showed that that night
in his immediate actions and his aggression to go save
an American doctor. And it really is an ode.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Back to.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Clark Schwedler from two thousand and seven to the Man
of Extortion seventeen, which is how I ended up on
Gold Squadron, you know, and their passing in just a
year prior in twenty eleven, and then Nick Check. So
every time I pick up this medal, I think about
those three tragic incidences and all the lives of the
warriors that were lost that went into me being there
(35:11):
on that night and then subsequently being awarded this medal.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Retired US Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Edward Byers. He
served nearly two decades as a Navy Seal and he's
a recipient of the Medal of Honor. I'm Greg Corumbus
and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus
(35:44):
and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of
the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American
Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow the American Veterans
Center on Facebook and on Twitter We're at avsdate. Subscribe
to the American Veterans Center YouTube channel for full oral
(36:05):
histories and special features, and of course, please subscribe to
the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks
again for listening, and please join us next time for
Veterans Chronicles.
Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumba's. Our guest in
this edition is retired US Navy Master Chief Petty Officer
Edward Byers. He served nearly two decades as a Navy
Seal and received the Medal of Honor for his actions
in Afghanistan in December twenty twelve. Edward Byers was born
(00:32):
and raised in Ohio. There had not been a strong
military legacy in his family, but he became fascinated by
the military and Navy seals, in particular through popular culture.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
There was no definitive reason why I joined him. It
was because the movies like Navy Seals had just come out,
books about seals in Vietnam, it started coming out, and
it was just fascinating me. It was really cool technology.
I wasn't allowed to own a gun growing up. I
never hunted when I growing up, and so watching this
stuff though as a young man on TV and reading
(01:06):
these books, it was just fascinating to me.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I think that that was the catalysts.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Buyers enjoyed a largely unstructured childhood, so joining the military
brought some major adjustments for him, but perhaps his best
early decision in the military was to listen to his mother.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
In the beginning.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So I first joined I became a Navy corman at
the advice of my mother, who said, you should do
something that you can use in the civilian world in
case this military venture does not work out for you.
And so I actually took her advice, and that's how
I became a Navy corman. But the Navy Corman rating
(01:46):
was closed off to seals, so I ended up, at
the advice of some of my peers, ended up volunteering
to go with the Marine Corps. So I became a
Navy doc with a grunt unit to two golf company.
And I will say that that is when I had
my first dose of reality of becoming a professional soldier
(02:10):
or sailor, because they it was much different than the
lifestyle that I had grown up with. Very regimented. It was,
there was no talking back. It was you do what
I say, you don't question it. You're a junior ranking member.
And that's just the way things had worked out, and
(02:32):
so I quickly had to adapt the environment to become successful.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
As a newly minted Navy corman. Buyer's first deployment took
him to the Middle East, around the time of a
major terrorist event. Despite the bombing of the USS coal,
Buyers says terrorism really didn't get discussed much on that assignment.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
My first deployment with the Marines was in two thousand
and it was with the twenty six meters. It was
my first deployment of my military career, and it was
the deployment in which the USS coal was blown up
and we were doing gator circles basically off the coast
of Israel, trying to understand what it is we're going
(03:15):
to do. From a Marine Corps perspective and a show force.
We didn't know what had happened, and I had no
idea about terrorism or out CADA even at that point
in history or life. It was just not something we discussed.
It was more big military movement components, you know, helping
(03:36):
out host nation or partner nation forces and doing any
sort of humanitarian aid aspects, which is a lot of
what Navy Marine you know inbarked Marine forces do on
deployments around the world, But we had not any insight
into terrorism at that point.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Not long after that deployment, Buyers decided to pursue his
long standing dream of becoming a Navy seal, and he
vividly remembers getting the news that he was invited to
Bud's training.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
About two weeks later, we had moved out into the
field on base for some preparation for potential deployment training.
And it was a scene that I envisioned watching like
band of Brothers.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
I was.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
We had just got to know in this twenty mile
forced march rock into the field and I was working
on one of my marine's feet, fixing their blisters, and
I hear this voice calling out going dock buyers, dock buyers,
dock buyers, and you know, we're very aggressive, you know
(04:48):
at that age, you know, scream out like what do
you want him over here? And it comes up and
he was a guy delivering mail, and it was a
scene like out of that you would see. I got it,
like I said, band of brothers. And he hands me
this piece of mail and so I finish up my
marines feet. I opened it up and it was my
(05:09):
request chit that was approved at ten buds. And so
this was right after nine to eleven, And it was
shortly after that a couple months later I got my
official orders, packed up our bags and we moved all
the way to San Diego to start my training.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
BUDS or seal training is the most intense anywhere in
the world. And if that weren't enough, Buyers and his
class arrived in Coronado, California, shortly after nine to eleven,
knowing that they were preparing to go to war. He
says what followed was unlike anything else he ever experienced.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
There is no way to describe what BUDS is like.
You are cold, wet, sandy, and miserable for eight months
to nine months, and that's if you make it all
the way through without getting injured or getting rolled back.
We started off with two hundred people plus in our class.
(06:05):
We came out of a Hell Week with a very
large number of people. I think it was well and
near ninety people, and we graduated with only I think
twenty three or twenty four original members of our class,
so it was a ninety percent reduction. I happened to
(06:28):
be one of those original members, so the psychological impacts
and the physical impacts of that are second to none.
I fractured my tailbone a couple of days before Hell
Week started, so I went through Hell Week with a
fractured tailbone. I wasn't able to do sit ups or
anything like that. I was colder than I've ever been
(06:51):
in my life, even despite the fact that it was
the towards the end of the summer when we were
going through our training, and there were times when you
have a you know, come to Jesus moment and go,
can you physically make it.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Through this type of stuff?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
And I really have to say that every time I
got to that point in training where can I keep going?
Is when I reflected back on my faith and I
would say a prayer and it said, give me a
sign that this is something I'm supposed to be doing
or that I can continue. And I have to say
there was a couple of times when I specifically made
(07:32):
that request that within a matter of just you know,
fifteen twenty seconds, we got the call from instructors to
take a extended break because they had they knew they
were they were pushing our class to the limit, and
it was, you know, within the time that they needed to.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Give us a break to recover.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And that is really what kept us going, because not
only was it physically draining, you have your own own mental,
you know, internal thoughts to it. Nine to eleven had
just happened, and so the instructors were trying to create
an environment that was unforgiving, and so the verbal components
to it that come from the instructor side just made
(08:16):
you think that you were the lowest piece of thing
in the world and that you didn't matter at all,
And so to wrestle with your internal thoughts, and then
as a class, you know, from an instructive perspective, you're
thinking that they hate you to the end degree. And
then the physical requirements as they get tougher and tougher
throughout training.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Is just something that.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Makes that training extremely unique and helps prepare you for
the long term aspects of continued war and the resiliency
component behind it. Because ultimately the takeaway is, buds, it
is not the heart thing in the world. The hardest
(09:01):
thing in the world is to say I want to
do this lifestyle for the next twenty years, the three
hundred days away from home, you know, the dozen deployments
to war zones, watching you know, friends die and teammates die,
and all the trials and tribulations that happen with that,
and so it's the closest thing they can do to
(09:24):
mimic the effects of warfare, and that part there is
what I really I'm grateful for because it embedded the
commitment and to desire and the resiliency components that I
would need to do throughout the rest of my career.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Buds training lasts several months and it tests every ounce
of your physical, mental, and emotional strength. But for buyers,
as grueling as the test was, that just made completing
the challenge that much sweeter.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
My biggest sense of pride and joy, I think really
came at the end of Hell Week because that was
the culmination of my entire upbringing of wanting to become
a seal and knowing that that was, at least in
my mind, the hurdle that was going to have to
(10:18):
Can you make it through Hell Week? It's five and
a half days. We had three hours of sleep. You
run well over one hundred miles with boats and telephone poles,
and it's pure exhaustion. You don't sleep for the first
you know, three days, that right there is it's really hard,
(10:38):
you know, processing that.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
So there's a video that I still have.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Fortunately, back in the day when there was really no
video because we didn't have cell phones of our the
commanding officer coming over.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
The BERM.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Which is in you know, Coronado is where the bases
and with the American flag and curing our hell week
class on Friday morning. And after he got done saying
your class is secured, something happened And I'm the only
person that did this, that just let out this roar,
and the roar probably lasted ten plus seconds, and the
(11:18):
entire class is turning their heads looking at me, and
I was so I was so proud in that moment
because I was a kid from small town America that
had no insight into what the military was.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
And you know, Navy Seals.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
At the top echelon of our military units, and BUDS
is renowned for being the hardest training in the military.
And I had just accomplished something that I would say,
outside of a handful of people in my life, nobody
(11:59):
thought I can.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Do in just a moment. Edward Byers takes us on
his first two Seal deployments to Iraq and the moment
that steered him in a new direction, and later Buyers
details his actions in Afghanistan that resulted in him receiving
the Medal of Honor. Our guest is retired Master Chief
Petty Officer Edward Byers. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is
(12:22):
Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Sixty seconds of Service.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
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recognizing these steadfast, edication and sacrifices made by service members
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(13:03):
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Speaker 1 (13:24):
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest this
week is retired Navy Seal and Medal of Honor recipient
Edward Byers. After completing his many months of seal training,
Buyers and his Seal team were sent to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
But the deployment was not what he expected when he
became a seal.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
So our first deployment with Seal Team four was to Bagdad, Iraq.
And it was right after this is two thousand and five,
and what had.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Started to take place was we already had the Battle.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Of Fallujah, which is, you know, Fallujah is not that
far from Baghdad, I think, I believe the year prior,
and we had picked up the responsibility of being the
Protective Service Detail or the PSD units for the interim
Government of Iraq.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
And so my first.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Half of the deployment was spent being on the Deputy
Prime Minister's Protective Service Detail, and about halfway through our deployment,
we the US government for some reason decided to drop
his Protective Service Detail and we then shifted over to
(14:57):
Baghdad International Airport to start doing direct action missions in
and around Baghdad and mainly in Solder City, and this
was really the rise of that militia group and b
was known at the time as the most dangerous place
(15:18):
in the world, and so we started doing direct action
missions in and around there till the end of our deployment. Fortunately,
nobody was hurt and we didn't We did a lot
of missions and we arrested a lot of people, but
we didn't remove anyone off the battlefield, which was a
(15:39):
very strange thing coming off of that deployment of going okay,
I've read about Navy seals in combat, especially from Vietnam,
and the impact that they had, which was massive for
how small their unit size was.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
And here I was.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I just spent nearly seven months in Baghdad, operating in
the most dangerous city in the world, and I went
through an entire deployment on the fire on my rifle.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
But Buyers is quick to add that the security work
he and his team did for the Iraqi government was
critically important, and while it's not what he expected to
be doing, he's proud of the work that was done.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
This was our first deployment and there was a lot
of things that were new to us. We had a
very dynamic deployment. It was a very much a proud
sense of the fact that we were doing protective service
detail for the interim government of Iraq, so we were
having strategic impact. Keeping these people alive meant everything to
(16:40):
us government. So as we were moving our detail around
inside the Green Zone and then out into various parts
around the country, you know, we flew all around the
country with our principle that was very much a sense
of pride and the fact that nothing ever happened to
him meant that we did our job.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
For his second Seal deployment, Buyer's was once again in Iraq.
Late in that assignment, he and other members of his
team were sent to Western Iraq, and it was there,
through the pain of losing a close friend, that Buyers
realized the next goal he wanted to pursue.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Our second deployment ended up coming pretty quick in our minds.
We had went through another workup and now this time
though we had deployed back to in late two thousand
and six, deployed back to Fallujah and another place called Habaniah,
and what we were doing out of there was now
(17:38):
training host nation forces and also doing direct action missions.
About halfway through that deployment, I got asked with a
couple other of my teammates to move out to western
Iraq near the Syria border called Rawa, and we helped
stand up a base out there that was a Marine
(18:01):
Corps base. What had happened on that deployment was the
thing that was an action that changed the.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Course of my life.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Clark Schweddler, Petioser first Class Clark Schweddler was doing a
direct action mission outside of Fallujah when he was fatally wounded.
And Clark was one of my very close friends and teammates,
and that drove the catalysts for me wanting to try
(18:32):
out for Naval Special Warfare Development Group, which is commonly
referred to as Seal Team six. And so that was
in April of two thousand and seven, right at the
very tail end of our deployment. It was also the
mission in which Mike Day, who is the chief pettiofficer
(18:55):
at the time, was caught shot twenty seven times, ended
up walking to the helicopter and it just it just
showed you sometimes you know.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
The tides of war.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
You can get shot one time or shot a couple
dozen times, and you may or may not live, depending
on what God has in store for you that but
Clark's death drove me to want to try out for
dev group and it was really the turning point in
(19:26):
my career with a Naval special war and as a
Navy seal.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Our guest is US Navy retired Master Chief Petty Officer
Edward Byers. He served two decades as a Navy Seal
and received the Medal of Honor for his actions in
Afghanistan in December twenty twelve. When We Come Back, Buyers
takes a step by step on that harrowing mission that
changed his life, and he talks about the painful memories
(19:53):
that will stay with him forever from that mission. I'm
Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles.
I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is retired
to US Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Edward Byers. He
served as a Navy Seal and received the Medal of
Honor for his service in Afghanistan from December twenty twelve.
(20:18):
Before walking us through the events of that fateful day,
Bayer says it's important to remember the context by now
he was on Seal Team six, and just a year earlier,
he had played, in his words, a small role in
the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. But the reason
he was where he was in December twenty twelve was
because of horrific losses that Special Operations suffered in the
(20:43):
summer of twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And then just a handful of months later, on August sixth,
twenty eleven, we had the downing of Extortion seventeen, and
the downing of Extortion seventeen end up becoming the greatest
single loss of life in special operations history, lost thirty
Americans in American Military working dog and in an eerie
nod to the call sign of that helicopter, we lost
(21:08):
seventeen seals, and so in an instant, a third of
one of our units was lost. What ended up happening
out of that was they decided they had to reconstitute
the loss of what was called known as two troop
from a Gold squadron, and so they decided to pull
(21:31):
individuals from other squadrons to reconstitute this lost troop. I
had the honor and privilege of being one of those men,
and I came over from Blue squadron to make up
the new two.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Troop Buyers now shares the mission. He and his team
were assigned on December eighth, twenty twelve, and he takes
us moment by moment through the intense effort to save
an American life.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Well, in early December, we started to get intelligence reporting
that an American doctor had been taken captive. He was
going over to do a doctor's without Borders thing and
had linked up with a few other Afghan doctors and
then come to find out they had turned on them,
and then they turned them over to the Taliban, who
(22:22):
then took him captive, and was more than likely it
was going to use.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Doctor Joseph as a.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
As a bargaining pond to help, you know, release some
captive combatants that the US had. Well, how our mission
came about so quickly was we started to get intelligence
reportings that they were going to get he was going
to get moved over to Pakistan, and typically when that happens,
(22:55):
you're almost for sure going to lose contact with that
person and then the survival rate is going to drastically
start decreasing as time goes on.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
And so our unit.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Spun up on this target we developed the intelligence picture
as fast as possible, and on the night of December eighth,
we launched out of our base and landed about five
hours away and started patrolling into the target. Now, what
we did differently, and it was again a nod back
(23:38):
to our Seal brethren in Vietnam and how they used
to attack targets going through the me condel, the you know,
the hardest way into the targets. We took on the
same approach because the way our target building was positioned
and where we thought the doctor was being held captive
was in a compound.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
That overlooked the entire valley. So there was no way to.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Walk up the front up the valley to the compound
because we despite it being at night and with even
lower loom at once your eyes adjusted, you can see
across the valley plain a day, especially with as many
people as we had and trying to move that those
type of forces.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
But this compound was to the back.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
It was butted up right to the back the bottom
of a mountain side, and so we came up up
the backside to that mountain and then had to walk
down the face of that mountain.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
What we didn't know.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Is because there's only so much you can get from
looking at the and doing route reconnaissance was how steep
it actually was, and there was points where our team
was turned around bouldering down the side of the mountain
and using our ladders to get down from.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Level to level to level.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
There was no clear path to do that, and so
it really cut into our time. When we all finally
got down to the bottom of the bit of the
mountain and we got to our set point, we started
to hear calls of prayer throughout the valley, and in
the very off in the very distance, started to see
the sun started to peek up first light, and so
(25:17):
we knew we were right on the cusp, no more
time to waste.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
It was at that moment.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
That Nick Check, our point man, started to lead out
our patrol and started moving towards the target building, our
area of responsibility. Now we were there with our entire
our entire troop, and the compound had many buildings and
many places that needed to be hit simultaneously, so our
(25:47):
team started to fan out and started taking their areas
of responsibility. Our specific team, Echo team, which was being
let out by Nick Check, moved to our target building
and that we had cessed is where the doctor Joseph
was being held. And so as we started to get
(26:08):
closer to the building, one of the Taliban guards had
come out of the door with his rifle and Nick
Check immediately engaged him, and that started the catalysts of
us rapidly accelerating our prosecution of the target. Nick took
(26:29):
shots on him and began sprinting and moved in such
a fashion that by the time I had a chance
to react and started to maneuver to gain some space
between us in case I had to also shoot, he
was already six to eight feet ahead of me. It
was in instantaneous shots on target to forward progression to
(26:51):
the door to prosecute this building. When we got to
the building, which was you know, only you know, twenty
to thirty feet away at this time the door we
encountered something we had never encountered before on all of
the prior years of doing combat operations. It was wool
blankets that were multi layered and cemented into the doorframe
(27:16):
on opposing sides, and so shots had already been fired,
and in a hostage rescue mission, we had to move
because if they woke up and decided to execute American hostage.
It is mission failure, and we do not do what
it is we're designed to do as a military unit.
And one of our first mission essential task lists is
(27:37):
to do hostage rescue.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
And so.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
We a couple of us hopped on these blankets to
try to rip them out of the door seam, and
they were cemented in so well they couldn't do it.
And it was even after a couple of seconds, it
was we heard our voice from our troop chief, you said,
get the hell inside there, let's go. You know, we're
talking about matters of second. There wasn't a long delay
(28:02):
in time, but seconds were hours in this environment right now.
And so as Nick started to weave his way through,
there was more gunshots. You can't really see what was
happening because you were having to push away multi layers
of blankets, these heavy wolf you know, blankets. And it's
(28:23):
very difficult too because you're getting it's getting hung up
on your gear, your guns, your night vision, all that stuff.
I moved in right behind Nick, and I had stepped
over something or someone moved into my area of responsibility,
which was to the left. And as I came in
and presented my weapon. I saw somebody that was about,
(28:44):
you know, twenty feet away from me also starting to
present a weapon towards me, and I was able to
engage him and make some very clean shots in his
head and dropped him right there. But it was a
matter of just split seconds of him getting shots off
on me versus the other way around. It was at
(29:05):
that time that I noticed somebody scrambling across the floor
that was moving towards those weapons, and by the time
I was able to close with that person, I was
able to lock them down on the ground, pinning them
to the ground with my knees on their shoulders as
I was adjusting my night vision to gain facial recognition.
This entire time, this person is grabbing, trying to reach
(29:28):
for these weapons and grab something, and well, I didn't
know if this was one of the hostages that was
scared and was trying to move because there was no
voices at this time, there was no nothing was being
called out. And it was roughly in that instance that
we began to call out for doctor Joseph, like somebody,
you know, is he in this room?
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Will he say it? And there was no response.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
There was no response, and this is all happening in
just matters of seconds, right, So, after a few more
of these callouts to doctor Joseph, I finally heard this voice,
I'm over here, I'm over here, and it was not
the person I was on top of, and it was
a voice that was coming to from my right hand side,
(30:14):
and so I made the decision to shoot the person
that I was on top of, and whether it killed
him or subdued him enough, I was able to then
jump off of that person and I leapt across the
room and was able to jump on doctor Joseph.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Because there's still shots.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Are now flying throughout this room, and so I jumped
on DoD Joseph protect him with my body armor. It
just happened to be, by the grace of God, that
one of the other taliban was within arm's reach of me,
and I was able to hold Doctor Joseph against me
(30:52):
with body armor and within arm's reach, I was able
to reach over and pin that per against the wall
by their throat. And fortunately what that had done would
just given enough time for the rest of the team
to make it inside and.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Eliminate that threat.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
And so once that threat was eliminated, we went through
doing the standard protocol of you know, asking him if
if he was hurt, ask him if he could you know, walk,
ask him if they had been booby trapped. You know,
he didn't know if they put a suicide vest on
him or if there was a you know, grenade that
(31:36):
was set up ready to do for the pinpull.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
So we did a.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
With a coordination with our EOD explosive check on and
make sure he's okay, and then we started to move him.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
We moved doctor Joseph outside.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
The team successfully rescued doctor Joseph, but that operation came
at a terrible price Mick check whom Buyers mentioned to
repeat and that account of the operation was seriously wounded,
and the desperate effort to save his life was soon underway.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
When we had moved doctor Joseph outside because we were
coming on really quickly for first light and we needed
to get extracted, I had looked over and I saw
that people were working on on Nick, and so I
had asked for a replacement to take over from security
(32:31):
detail on doctor Joseph, and I started going over and
working on Nick and helping our Air Force pair of
rescuemen and started to do a head to tow assessment
on Nick and begin to see what.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
We could do to potentially save his life.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
After the helicopters landed, we quickly got on board and
they took off and for the next forty minutes on
our way back to Bogram, we treated Nick's wounds. We
did interustrious or io device IVS and started CPR on them,
(33:10):
which we rotated through the entire flight. And it was
at the time when we got to the cash you know,
the military hospital on base, that the doctors, you know,
pronounced him dead on the scene.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Unfortunately, Nick was succumbed.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
To you know, he was shot in the head and
there was really not much we could do for him,
but we knew if there was any chance, we owed him.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
That Buyer sees the Medal of Honor as a blessing
and a burden. He loves having a lifetime of opportunities
to talk about why he loves this country and the
values that make us great, but he says it does
require many days away from home after a military career
that also kept him away from his family. But Byers
says he also wears the medal in honor of those
(33:57):
on his teams and his friends. We were lost on
the battlefield.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
But as I talked about in the past.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And how I view being a recipient at the end
of the day, and I'm just a holder of this medal,
and while it's for my personal actions, it is really
really they would never have been able. I would have
never been able to do what I have done if
it wasn't for my entire team as a whole and
(34:27):
how we operated. Nick was an absolute warrior, and he
was fearless and he showed he showed that that night
in his immediate actions and his aggression to go save
an American doctor. And it really is an ode.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Back to.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Clark Schwedler from two thousand and seven to the Man
of Extortion seventeen, which is how I ended up on
Gold Squadron, you know, and their passing in just a
year prior in twenty eleven, and then Nick Check. So
every time I pick up this medal, I think about
those three tragic incidences and all the lives of the
warriors that were lost that went into me being there
(35:11):
on that night and then subsequently being awarded this medal.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Retired US Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Edward Byers. He
served nearly two decades as a Navy Seal and he's
a recipient of the Medal of Honor. I'm Greg Corumbus
and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus
(35:44):
and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of
the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American
Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow the American Veterans
Center on Facebook and on Twitter We're at avsdate. Subscribe
to the American Veterans Center YouTube channel for full oral
(36:05):
histories and special features, and of course, please subscribe to
the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks
again for listening, and please join us next time for
Veterans Chronicles.
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