Marine Forces Reserve, New Orleans -- Cpl. Daniel Gire found out he had to address the crowd minutes before the Marines’ Hymn kicked off his Silver Star Medal award ceremony.
“I’m not very good at this kind of thing,” he began as he stood in front of dozens of family, friends and fellow veterans.
At the Veterans Memorial in Columbus, Ohio, he spoke for less than 30 seconds after Lt. General John Kelly, commander, Marine Forces Reserve, pinned on his medal. Pausing with emotion, he thanked his family, his Marine Corps training and his fellow Marines for making sure he made it home from Iraq.
“I think in that situation any Marine would do what I did,” said Gire, now medically retired for over a year. “It was just wrong place, wrong time.”
On Feb. 13, 2007, Gire was serving as a radio operator with Supporting Arms Liaison Team D, 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) supporting elements of a U.S. Army unit in Al Ramadi.
The troops were withdrawing under fire when they were hit by insurgent rocket propelled grenade and machine gun fire that wounded all the members of Gire’s SALT team as well as one soldier. Gire, seriously injured by the blast of the RPG, rose to see his team scout and leader hit by machine gun fire.
“As bullets and rocket propelled grenades snapped by within inches of him,” Gire roused his teammate and together they got their team leader into a house, his citation read.
The team realized they were stranded and that the quick reaction force vehicle sent to retrieve them had inaccurate coordinates.
Gire couldn’t use his Squad Automatic Weapon because of his injuries, so, using a teammate’s M-4 and firing from his weak hand, Gire braved direct enemy fire as he ran in the open toward one of the QRF vehicles and directed it back to the wounded men.
Back in the states it was the day before Valentines Day and Michelle Gire, Daniel’s step-mother, was baking cookies.
“He normally says ‘hey how you are doing’ and he didn’t say that,” recalled Michelle. “I knew immediately something was wrong.”
Instead, “Hey ‘Chelle, where’s dad?” was all he said over the phone as he was evacuated off the battlefield.
Now safely home with family in Ohio, Gire doesn’t like to say too much about what he did, he’s shy family said.
His family and fellow service members, however, recognized he had done something special.
“The United States Marine Corps does not decorate its people lightly,” said Kelly before reading Gire’s citation. “In combat, the expected is unbelievable acts of heroism.”
Gire’s two brothers are also Marines, extending a family legacy of military service that dates back to the Civil War. To them, Gire’s actions under fire say more than any acceptance speech or long winded war story could.
“Dan has always had an exuberant amount of courage and this just proves to everyone that he had it inside him,” said Gire’s older brother Nicholas, who served as an airframe rotary wing mechanic before entering the IRR as a sergeant. “I think Dan’s always had that fight in him.”