Air National Guardsmen received Purple Hearts for the attack on Tower 22

Three airmen injured in a deadly drone strike on a U.S. military base in Jordan earlier this year were recently awarded Purple Hearts, the Air Force announced recently.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Michael Byrne, Senior Airman Herland Antezana and Staff Sgt. Dustin Dinkelacker accepted the award during a ceremony Oct. 5 at Moffett Air National Guard Base, California. All three Airmen are assigned to the 129th Rescue Squadron.

“I hope you all wear this with great pride and honor,” said Maj. Gen. Steven Butow, commander of the California Air National Guard, who pinned the Purple Hearts on the three Airmen during the ceremony.

Byrne, Antezana and Dinkelacker were among 41 National Guardsmen injured in the Jan. 28 drone strike on the base, known as Tower 22. Three Army Reserve soldiers were killed in the attack: Sgt. Kennedy L. Sanders, Sgt. Breonna Moffett and Staff Sgt. William Rivers.

Subscribe to Task & Purpose Today. Get the latest military news and culture delivered to your inbox daily.

All three airmen lost consciousness due to the explosion. As soon as they came to, they knocked on doors and warned others that another attack was possible, then ran to a bunker.

“We ran to the center of the action,” Byrne said in the Air Force news release. “At that point we realized this wasn’t a training thing. This is real life.”

After arriving at the bunker, the three airmen began helping other soldiers. They worked together to ensure the wounded troops received medical care and began evacuating the injured.

“There were people who took responsibility who wouldn’t normally be in the role of a supervisor and gave direct instructions about what needed to be done, and then it happened,” Byrne said. “The people who were there did a great job.”

The airmen went door to door, putting out fires and searching the rubble for other injured soldiers. Only when the situation began to stabilize did they seek medical attention for their own injuries.

“That’s when we realized the impact the UAV was having on us as the adrenaline started to subside,” Antezana said, referring to the unmanned aerial vehicle used in the attack. “We weren’t doing well at that point.”

All three airmen were treated for their injuries and continued their deployment until returning home in May.

US military officials have blamed Iranian-backed groups for the attack on Tower 22. Army Gen. Joel “JB” Vowell, then commander of all U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, told Task & Purpose in June that the attack was part of a strategy by Iranian proxies to inflict enough casualties on American forces in the Middle East the USA to withdraw from the region.

Following the attack on Tower 22, U.S. and partner nation forces have increased their defenses against drone attacks, Vowell said in an exclusive interview with Task & Purpose.

“We have leveled the field with force protection,” Vowell said. “We dug up a lot more soil. We poured a lot more concrete. We’ve gone back to school: where do we still pose risks that are simply unacceptable?”

Vowell said it was personally important to him to remember the soldiers he lost under his command. He recalled speaking to the families of the three soldiers killed in Tower 22 after the attack.

“I called their families — all three of them, great families, great people, great Americans — to express our sincerest condolences for their loss and the sacrifices,” Vowell said. “What they were doing there was doing something to help us continue the ISIS fight in Syria. And we remember that. We don’t want to forget. We can’t forget.”

The latest on task and purpose