Delta Force’s Thomas Payne to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor

Iraq, 2015. Delta Force’s Command Sergeant Major (CSM) Thomas Payne and Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler air assaulted with Kurdish commandos from a specialized CH-47 Chinook helicopter into the town of al-Hawija, Iraq in the northern province of Kirkuk. Intelligence had estimated that as many as 70 prisoners of the Islamic State were being held in the town. The prisoners were scheduled for imminent execution. The Delta men were there to back the Kurdish assault on the objective; they had no immediate intent to spearhead the action. When operations went south fast for the Kurds, the Delta men proactively advanced. They quickly went over the wall obstacle, which the Kurds had failed to explosively breach, and gained access to the first of the two buildings identified as holding prisoner cells. They cleared the building and cut the locks freeing an estimated 40 prisoners.

Immediately, there came distress calls from the Kurdish force at the second building. The Kurds were under heavy gunfire from ISIS opposition. The Delta men maneuvered to the heavily fortified second building and scaled a ladder to its roof, all the while under a heavy volume of ISIS machine gun fire from below. They then began to eliminate the ISIS gunners below. It was during the maneuver between the two buildings that Joshua Wheeler was fatally shot by ISIS gunners. Even with the second prisoner retention building on fire, CSM Payne breached the exterior door and repeatedly entered the building with bolt cutters freeing another estimated 30 prisoners. Aerial photos of the target area revealed freshly-dug pits nearby. It was suspected that they would serve as graves for the bodies of the soon-to-be executed 70 prisoners. CSM Thomas Payne was originally awarded the Nation’s second-highest award, the Distinguished Service Cross, but his actions were later reviewed and his distinction upgraded to the Congressionally-awarded Medal of Honor — the Nation’s highest honor. While the Nation bitterly mourns the loss of the venerable Josh Wheeler, it celebrates the heroic action of its brother hero, Thomas “Patrick” Payne.

https://sofrep.com/news/deltas-thomas-payne-to-receive-the-congressional-medal-of-honor/

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Video coverage of the raid on the prison in Huwija

Amid the incessant crackle of gunfire, the soldiers usher the cowering men through darkened rooms. The men are barefoot, most of them wearing long robes, some with large stains. As voices holler at them in the darkness to move quickly, they hurry across the debris-littered floor past the gun-wielding soldiers. The frantic scene is from a newly released video showing parts of the mission in northern Iraq on Thursday in which U.S., Kurdish and Iraqi forces freed around 70 hostages from an ISIS-controlled prison. The rescue of the hostages, who the Pentagon said were facing "imminent mass execution," cost the life of one of the U.S. soldiers taking part in the operation – Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler. A member of the U.S. Army's elite Delta Force, Wheeler was the first American to die in combat in Iraq in nearly four years. His death has raised questions about the nature of U.S. involvement in the fight against ISIS.