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Southampton Press
December 15, 2005
A Soldier Is Cited For Rescue in Iraq
By Caroline Simson
On November 30, 2003, U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant Brian Micari was participating in
a combat search and rescue mission in Iraq when his unit was hit with a 122-millimeter rocket fired by insurgents.
“The rocket hit 30 or 40 feet in front of where I was standing,” recalled Tech. Sgt. Micari, a member of the Air
National Guard’s 106th Rescue Wing stationed at Gabreski Airport in Westhampton, during an interview on Monday.
The rocket hit an aircraft shelter at Baghdad International Airport, where his unit was stationed. Although he
escaped injury, Tech. Sgt. Micari, who is now 30, said the blast caused him to have temporary deafness for about
15 seconds. When his hearing returned, he heard a voice from inside the bombed shelter yelling for help.
“I ran into the aircraft shelter, and there were flames and smoke all around,” he recalled.
Despite the confusion following the rocket attack, and the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not another attack
was coming, Tech. Sgt. Micari said he reacted on instinct when he ran into the shelter. After searching for a few
moments, he pulled a fellow solder whose hand had been badly injured by shrapnel to safety.
“There was one individual who had a bad shrapnel wound, and I brought him into the hardened aircraft shelter, where
myself and some other people gave him medical care and stabilized him for the ambulance,” Tech. Sgt. Micari said.
The injured soldier was Douglas Batchelder, a senior airman assigned to the 347th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron,
a member of the U.S. Air Force stationed at Moody Air Force base in Georgia. His unit had just flown in earlier
that day to replace members of the ANG unit based at Gabreski.
Tech. Sgt. Micari said he had never seen Mr. Batchelder prior to the day of the attack and, two days later, the
Westhampton resident and his unit were on a plane heading back to Gabreski Airport. A spokesperson for the Moody
Air Force Base said on Tuesday that Mr. Batchelder is alive and well.
Nearly two years after the rocket attack, the U.S. Air Force presented Tech. Sgt. Micari this past September with
the Air Force Commendation Medal of Valor in recognition of his heroic act. Another member of the same unit, Charles
Kreidler, who lives on the North Fork, received the same medal for helping perform first aid on the wounded soldier.
In spite of his selfless actions, Tech. Sgt. Micari, who is unmarried and now lives in Hampton West Estates, located
adjacent to the Westhampton airport, said he does not really feel like a hero.
“I was just doing something I think anybody else would have done,” he said, adding that he was proud to receive
the medal during the special ceremony.
His grandmother, Agnes Micari of Hampton Bays, said she was very proud of her grandson and pleased that he had
returned home to Long Island.
“[The rocket attack] happened just two nights before he was due back in Westhampton,” Ms. Micari recalled, adding
that she did not hear about what had happened until her grandson had returned home. “They made out fine until two
days before coming home. I was very pleased, and very proud of him.”
Tech. Sgt. Micari, who has been a member of the 106th Rescue Wing for the past 12 years working in aircraft armament
systems, said he left for Afghanistan soon after returning home from Iraq in December 2003. He returned from Afghanistan
last month and expects to remain stationed in Westhampton for at least the next year or two, unless his unit is
needed again in the Middle East.
Noting that he was stationed in Iraq for four months, Tech. Sgt. Micari said he felt very lucky to have been able
to leave the war torn country relatively unscathed. He explained that he and several members of his unit spent
the night after the attack in a hospital at the base.
Tech. Sgt. Micari said most of those who suffered injuries were hurt not from the rocket attack itself, but by
the efforts of military personnel to extinguish the subsequent fire. He explained that the chemical used to control
fires involving aircraft fuel actually robs the air of oxygen in order to extinguish the flames and, as a result,
some soldiers suffered respiratory problems that required medical attention. No soldiers were killed in the rocket
attack.
“There were several other attacks while we were there, but nothing ever came that close,” Tech Sgt. Micari said,
adding that the military never found out who had fired the rocket.
“Afterward, I looked at the shrapnel, and it was 30 or 40 feet away from me,” he continued. “It should have injured
or killed me. And two nights prior, we had had a going-away ceremony [in the aircraft shelter]. If it had happened
then, it could have killed a lot of people.”
Issue Date: Southampton Press 12-15-05
Copyright, The Southampton Press
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