BlackFive

SERGEANT FIRST CLASS RANDALL D. SHUGHART, UNITED STATES ARMY, U. S. Army Special Operations Command, distinguished himself on 3 October 1993, while serving as a Sniper Team Member attached to TASK FORCE RANGER in Mogadishu, Somalia. Sergeant Shughart provided precision sniper fires from the lead helicopter during an assault on a building and at two helicopter crash sites, while subjected to intense automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenade fires. While providing critical suppressive fires at the second crash site, Sergeant Shughart and his team leader learned that ground forces were not immediately available to secure the site. Sergeant Shughart and his team leader unhesitatingly volunteered to be inserted to protect the four critically wounded personnel, despite being well aware of the growing number of enemy personnel closing in on the site. After their third request to be inserted, he and his team leader received permission to perform this volunteer mission. When debris and enemy ground fires at the site caused them to abort the first attempt, Sergeant Shughart and his team leader were inserted one hundred meters south of the crash site. Equipped with only his sniper rifle and a pistol and while under intense small arms fire from the enemy, they fought their way through a dense maze of shanties and shacks to reach the critically injured crew members. Sergeant Shughart pulled the pilot and the other crew members from the aircraft, establishing a perimeter which placed him and his fellow sniper in the most vulnerable position. Sergeant Shughart used his long-range rifle and side arm to kill an undetermined number of attackers while moving around the perimeter, protecting the downed crew. Sergeant Shughart continued his protective fire until he depleted his ammunition and was fatally wounded. His actions saved the pilot’s life.

Above is the citation for the Medal of Honor posthumously awarded to Sergeant First Class Shughart. 

Robert Ford is upset with Big Spring High School.  The School Board refuses to rename the school in honor of Randall Shughart.  Even the students have signed a petition against it.

Unheralded sacrifice of Randall Shugart is demeaning

Monday, March 14, 2005

Did Sgt. First Class Randall Shughart sacrifice his life so the students at his former high school could have a new all-weather surface on the high school track? Apparently Big Spring Student Council thinks so. This was the most appalling remark made at the recent school board meeting that once again rejected efforts to name the new high school building in Shughart's honor.

Shughart gave his own life to save that of a fellow soldier on Oct. 3, 1993, in Mogadishu, Somalia. Along with Master Sgt. Gary Gordon, Shughart was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions above and beyond the call of duty.

His story was featured in the book and movie by the same title, Black Hawk Down. It is a story that has a long and spiritual history: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13).

Shughart was a 1976 graduate of Big Spring High School in Newville. The Navy has named a ship and a class of ships in honor of Shughart, the Army War College in Carlisle has named a residence hall in his honor, and the mayor of Harrisburg has named a street in his honor.

Shughart is further honored in North Carolina at the Airborne & Special Operations Museum, in Louisiana in a military training town of 27 multistory buildings, in Colorado with a hall at Fort Carson, and in the best free enterprise tradition of America, by SOKO Toys, which has produced a G.I. Joe-like doll of Shughart.

There is one place however, where nothing is named in honor of Randall Shughart. That is his hometown of Newville, where he was raised, and in particular, Big Spring High School, his alma mater.

Big Spring recently built a $30 million high school, and for several years Richard Chamberlain, a Korean War veteran, has been attempting to have the new building named in honor of Shughart...

Read the whole piece.  I think that there's going to be more effort to get the High School renamed in the coming months.