Fort Stewart soldiers honored for bravery in subduing shooter

UPDATE 6:11 PM: ADDS photo gallery of event

U.S. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll awarded 6 Fort Stewart soldiers the Meritorious Service Medal for their quick actions Wednesday in subduing another soldier who shot 5 troops and for rendering lifesaving aid to the wounded. 

“There are not a lot of people like you that can go through what you just did yesterday and come back to work today, and come back and do PT (physical training),” Driscoll told members of the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team Thursday. “We are so proud of you, we love you.”

During a press conference on base, 3rd Infantry Division Commanding Officer Brig. Gen. John Lubas said 3 of the 5 wounded soldiers had been released the same day, which was “amazing, considering the circumstances and the range in which they were engaged.”

A fourth soldier remains at Winn Army Hospital but “she’s doing very well in high spirits, of course she’s got a little bit of a road to recovery. We’re hopeful she may be released as early as this weekend.”

A fifth soldier is at HCA Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah, “where I visited with the secretary this morning,” Lubas said. “The doctor is very positive, but I think it’s going to take her a little bit longer to recover. But they’re very hopeful she’s going to make a complete recovery.”

Driscoll, who also visited with the wounded soldiers prior to the ceremony on base, expressed support for the soldiers’ families.

“Our hearts broke with them,” he said. “We tried to hug them, tried to convey that the President [Donald Trump] and Vice-President [J.D. Vance] and Secretary of Defense [Pete Hegseth], that our entire nation, mourns with them. We stand behind them. It has only been a couple of hours that I think they are still processing through it, but what we wanted to convey is, we will be here with them every single step of the way. The United States Army is committing every resource we need to to get these soldiers back into their formations as quickly as we possibly can.”

Lubas said that soldiers “train for this on the battlefield and it’s a different situation when it happens on an installation with one of your own.” Because of that, “people are going to process this and work through this at their own rates, and we know we’ve got to keep a very close eye on them and wrap our arms around them.”

He praised the troops’ professionalism: “We feel that this demonstrates that we train internally for the worst-case scenario, and our doctors and our medics and our soldiers responded exactly as we trained them to do, and now our job is to make sure we care for them.”

Lubas added that “the support from the local community [is] just amazing,” that the first SWAT team from off base arrived within 20 minutes, and that the “six incredible soldiers behind us are just representative of the larger formation. Once the shooter was identified and a threat was identified, we had soldiers that immediately raced, tackled that soldier, wrestled the gun away, subdued him, a second non-commissioned officer jumped on top of the first soldier until the police could arrive. And that’s simultaneously. No one hesitated.”

The troops’ quick actions to stop the bleeding, Lubas said, was crucial.

“Most of the soldiers behind me and others in the crowd immediately started applying first aid and, most importantly, stopped the bleeding. When we spoke to the surgeons in the hospital, it was clear that the actions they took, primarily stopping that bleeding before they were loaded up in the ambulance, quickly evacced, and went on to medical service, saved their lives.”

Driscoll said he and Lubas realize “the trauma [soldiers experience]  often doesn’t hit for weeks or months on end. It doesn’t come as quickly as you might think. So what we try to encourage from all of our soldiers is to speak up, lean on each other, lean on your leadership, and we will provide the resources, the care, and the love that they need to recover.”

Meritorious Service Medal awardees

The soldiers cited for their actions include:

Master Sgt. Justin Thomas, a senior enlisted maintenance supervisor from Kingwood, Texas, who “exhibited remarkable composure and professionalism by helping Sgt. Turner restrain the assailant, working as a team to prevent additional harm during the dangerous situation.”

1st Sgt. Joshua Arnold, a senior enlisted maintenance supervisor from Fort Bragg, N.C., who “provided immediate aid to soldiers, including stopping the bleeding of a wounded soldier. His quick and decisive action helped secure the scene for emergency services and facilitated the transport of wounded soldiers to higher levels of medical care.”

Staff Sgt. Melissa Taylor, a career counselor from Winterhaven, Fla., who “provided immediate assistance to fellow soldiers in peril by helping to secure the scene for emergency services and ensured wounded soldiers were transported to higher levels of care.”

Staff Sgt. Robert Pacheco, a combat medic from Amsterdam, N.Y., who “provided critical medical care to wounded soldiers, ensuring stabilization and timely transport to advanced medical facilities.”

Sgt. Eve Rodarte, a combat medic from El Centro, Calif., who “provided critical medical care to wounded soldiers, ensuring stabilization and timely transport to advanced medical facilities without loss of life.”

Sgt. Aaron Turner, an automated logistical specialist from Farmington, N.M., who “successfully restrained the assailant during the incident, preventing further harm to his fellow soldiers.”

“I and the administration and President Trump could not be more proud of them,” Driscoll told reporters. “They are everything that is good about this country. They are the best among us in our country, they are the best among us in our Army, and they acted in a way that I think all of us feel we would have acted under fire but they did. And so we are just so incredibly proud of them. We are so grateful for them. And one of the things we told them and their colleagues is that we will stand with you as long as we need to to get them back where they need to be.”

How secure are base entrances?

The Current asked Driscoll whether the Department of Defense would consider hardening entrances to installations to prevent personal firearms from being brought in and out of the gates.

“We are constantly looking at our security protocols on all of our bases, both in CONUS [Continental United States] and around the world,” Driscoll replied. “We absolutely will want to learn from this investigation. We do not want something like this to ever happen again on an Army base. And so if there are things we can do to improve safety, we will take those steps, but right now, we’re really early in the investigation.”

Driscoll pledged more details would be forthcoming: “Our commitment is, what we learn will be disclosed and will be transparent. Justice will be brought on behalf of these victims and the community that was harmed.”

Ryan O’Connor of the Army Criminal Investigations Division (CID) ssaid, “As the secretary mentioned, this is still an active investigation. We’re still processing the scene with all of the resources and capabilities that the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division has to offer, which is immense. We serve people for this entire region. In light of the fact that we’re still processing, I’m going to have to defer that question for now.”

Processing the scene, O’Connor explained, “would normally encompass digital evidence, forensic evidence, trace evidence, all of those things which our team is currently doing.” He declined to comment on whether any security video had recorded the incident.

Asked whether it was “normal” for soldiers to carry personal weapons on base, he replied, “No. That would be a violation.”

Visitors and troops who enter the gates at Fort Stewart typically must show identification, such as a military ID or driver’s license, which armed military police scan. Visitors are directed to a separate building to get approved for a pass, although some civilians, such as working media or VIPs, may be cleared in advance and escorted onto base.

Turner, the soldier who tackled suspect Sgt. Quornelius Radford, told The Current the suspect started shooting with an “extended magazine and had the barrel angled downward…. It got to the point where he had dropped the extended mag, put the — he had ended up putting a single mag in, and by the time that ended up happening, I saw [MSgt. Justin] Thomas coming by the corner, pointed back, and that ended up happening, got the gun out of his hand, dropped the magazine.”

Radford is being held in military custody, “and we are working through the Uniform Code of Military Justice process at this time,” aid.

Wednesday’s attack is the third incident on Fort Stewart in recent years involving soldiers with personal weapons.

Other U.S. military installations also have seen mass shootings, including In 2009, at Fort Hood, TX, where 13 people were shot dead and more than 30 wounded in 2009.

Type of Story: News

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.