BASRA, IRAQ, APRIL 4, 2008

The Iraqi government launched an offensive to dislodge Shiite militia fighters from the southern port city of Basra. Army commandos were embedded with the Iraqi units to advise them in tough urban combat.

The communications sergeant, the lead adviser to an Iraqi Special Operations Force, rode in a convoy into the lair of Jaish al-Mahdi, the Arabic term for the Mahdi Army. The insurgents ambushed them with rifle fire, rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices.

In Iraq, the most feared and lethal type of IED, the explosively formed penetrator, which punctures armor, struck his vehicle. The blast wounded everybody inside, knocking them unconscious. The attack destroyed the soldier’s night-vision goggles and helmet.

Wounded, he roused himself and realized his radio had also been disabled. He jumped from the vehicle and darted more than 100 yards, “completely exposed to enemy fire,” to the lead truck in the convoy. He returned — “still exposed and receiving heavy small arms fire” — with another American commando to treat the wounded Iraqi soldiers.

The sergeant would run the gantlet repeatedly, refusing medical treatment and gunning down two militants who tried to flank the convoy.

Only when he “knew that the other wounded soldiers were removed from the ambush site, did he allow the medic to assess his own wounds.” His actions were “that of a true hero to the Regiment.”