Sgt. 1st Class Mark A. Wanner

Company B, 2nd Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group, Ohio National Guard

Fighting back tears, Sgt. 1st Class Sean Clifton recounted the day he almost lost his life after being shot multiple times during a raid on a Taliban compound in eastern Afghanistan. “I’m standing here today, alive, because of the heroic and competent actions Mark performed on the night of May 31, 2009 -- Memorial Day,” Clifton said. The previous week, Clifton and his team had received word that a known Taliban leader would soon be meeting with about a half dozen Taliban fighters at a known location in a nearby village. After waiting for five days with what Wanner referred to as “tactical patience,” the team received word that their target was in position. It had been training with their Afghan counterparts for nearly five months and the plan was to allow the Afghans to take the lead and follow shortly behind. But when the team approached the village, the Afghans were already in trouble and the situation was deteriorating quickly. They had expected five or six Taliban fighters, but there were at least 30. They reacted immediately. “I led some guys into a doorway and that just happened to be the room that had 80 percent of the threat,” Clifton said. “I knew something wasn’t quite right. Then I got hit.” Clifton had taken at least four rounds. The first entered his pelvis just below his body armor, the second impacted the chest plate of his body armor, the third shattered his left forearm and the last round hit his helmet, knocking off his night vision goggles. When he saw his arm and realized his rifle had dropped down in front of him, he knew he was in trouble. He headed back out and almost immediately ran into Sgt. 1st Class Matt Scheaffer, a team medic. Wanner, the team’s senior medic, realizing Clifton was hit, immediately ran to assist Scheaffer. Rounds splashed the ground around them as they began working on their wounded comrade. Realizing the danger to their patient, they quickly drug him around to what they assumed was the safer side of the building. As the two medics continued to work on Clifton, Wanner began to realize the extent of his wounds. He knew they couldn’t move their patient unless they had a stretcher, so ran to the vehicle to retrieve one. As he returned, they began receiving fire from a window about 15 feet away, forcing them to press up against the wall of the building. As he continued to work on Clifton, Wanner coordinated suppressing fire on the window and told Scheaffer to grab the fragmentation grenade. Wanner kept on the back of his body armor and toss it into the room from which they were taking fire. The tactic worked. It subdued the enemy long enough for them to race Clifton to a vehicle for evacuation. Wanner continued to provide life-saving care as they bounced across the desert to a medical evacuation site, avoiding the main routes they knew to be laced with roadside bombs. When the medical evacuation helicopters arrived, Wanner boarded the one carrying his Soldier-turned-patient and didn’t leave his side until Clifton was transported to the U.S. Army hospital at Landstuhl, Germany, three days later. “He was there every step of the way, ensuring I was receiving the best possible care,” Clifton said. “He assisted the flight surgeon in the medevac, the trauma surgeons in the (operating room) and even helped out a wounded Soldier that lay next to me. That’s Mark … always going over and above the call of duty.”

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