Green Beret SFC Halbisengibbs reflects on the events that earned him the Distinguished Service Cross. SFC Halbisengibbs, along with CPT Chaney and SFC Lindsay, assaulted and fought through a heavily armed Iraqi terrorist stronghold in order to retrieve a high-value target. The official narrative to accompany his award states:

Upon clearing the first structure, the assault element immediately came under enemy machine gun fire causing a dangerous pause in the momentum of the Iraqi National Police. SSG Halbisengibbs instantly identified the immediate threat and killed an enemy defending from inside the doorway of the targeted building. He then proceeded to regain the momentum by personally leading the assault force into the targeted building while under constant enemy gunfire. Initiating the assault with a single fragmentary grenade, instantly killing an additional three terrorists entrenched inside the building, he instinctively cleared the entryway, entered the building and engaged and instantly killed an enemy firing at the assault element from inside the building at close range.

SSG Halbisengibbs continued to clear the structure in complete darkness as his night vision goggles and personal radio were all destroyed by enemy gunfire at point blank range. Stumbling over a dead enemy, he was shot in the thumb and propelled to the ground by the blast of an enemy grenade which propelled two other Operational Detachment – Alpha (ODA) assaulters out of the building. Alone, he relentlessly continued to engage the concealed enemy and in a moment of intense close quarters battle killed one additional terrorist inside the now chaotic structure.

Once the targeted building was cleared, SSG Halbisengibbs exited the building and immediately passed a verbal status report to his ODA indicating that he was injured but that he was able to continue the fight. He immediately came under automatic weapons fire at close range from a defending enemy position in an adjacent structure not yet cleared by the stalled National Police assault force. As SSG Halbisengibbs reacted to the threat, he was shot in the abdomen, but was still able to kill the enemy as he fell to the ground seriously wounded. SSG Halbisengibbs’ heroic performance rekindled the fighting spirit in the stalled Iraqi force, who carried on the assault and cleared the remainder of the objective. SSG Halbisengibbs was responsible for single – handedly killing six enemy out of a total of eleven on this objective and eliminating a High Value Terrorist who led operations throughout Salah ad Din Province. “

Video courtesy of USASOC PAO