Hometown Hero

By Patrick Sherman

The Clackamas Review, May 16, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

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“I set up my radios and requested air support,” he said. “I figured that if I was in front, then all of my guys would be behind me – so there wouldn’t be the risk of them being hit by our planes.”

Another soldier, his identity still a military secret, climbed the tower with Covel carrying a machinegun.

“He would lay down fire so that I could pop my head up and get a look,” said Covel. “Then they got a machinegun on us and we started taking pretty accurate fire.”

A sniper who climbed onto the roof to support Covel and the machinegunner was wounded – his ear literally shot off the side of his head. The other soldier carried the injured man to safety, leaving the machinegun to Coval.

In the skies above, a fearsome armada of U.S. strike aircraft began to orbit, waiting for Covel’s instructions to release their deadly payload. The first to arrive were a pair of Navy F-18 jets.

“I called in the strike danger close,” he said – close enough that he himself could be injured or killed by the blast. “When they were directly overhead, I couldn’t hear anything it was so loud, and my ears were ringing from when they kicked in their afterburners to get out of there.”

The battle raged for a day and a half, with Covel coordinating air attacks, using his own rifle to defend himself and his team, and serving as an air traffic controller – keeping the pilots overhead from colliding while waiting for the order to strike.

“Through all that, nobody on his team was killed,” said General Bartlett. “I don’t say this lightly because we are speaking of humanity here, but they took out between 120 and 150 enemies who were trying to kill them.”

The recommendation that Covel receive an award for his actions came not from the Air Force, but from the Army team that he had seen safely through the battle.

“When they told me, I thought they were kidding,” said Covel. “I thought it was a joke. I was embarrassed that they would put me in for the Silver Star.

“I don’t feel that I did anything different than anyone else in that same situation would have done. Any of the other guys who do my job would have done the same thing.”

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