A Toledo-area native will be awarded the Medal of Honor later this month for his role in a 2012 hostage rescue in Afghanistan.
Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward Byers, 36, will receive the medal Feb. 29. He is the 11th living service member to receive the Medal of Honor for actions in Afghanistan, according to the White House.
The medal will be presented by President Obama. It is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy that can be given to a U.S. serviceman.
Mr. Byers, who graduated from Otsego High School in 1997, was part of a team that rescued an American hostage in December, 2012.
According to USA Today, Mr. Byers, a Navy SEAL, was part of a “dramatic nighttime raid of a Taliban compound that led to the rescue of an American doctor.”
The doctor, Dr. Dilip Joseph, was kidnapped for ransom by Taliban fighters while attempting to set up clinics in Afghanistan.
The White House did not provide any information about Mr. Byers’ role in the rescue or the mission itself.
Pat Heyman, whose son grew up with Mr. Byers through Boy Scouts and high school, said Mr. Byers was “a very nice guy; very polite. Always willing to help out anybody who needed it” even when he was very young.
Although she hasn’t seen or spoken to Mr. Byers in years, she said she felt the enormity of the award.
“It actually makes me tear up thinking he put himself in harm’s way to make sure that someone else made it home safe,” she said.
Mr. Byers joined the Navy in September, 1998. He served at Great Lakes Naval Hospital in Illinois, and later with the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. In 2002 he started the work necessary to become a Navy SEAL, graduated from the course, and completed a special operations combat medic course in 2003, according to the White House. Mr. Byers has completed eight overseas deployments with seven combat tours.
He has been awarded five Bronze Star Medals with Combat V device, two Purple Hearts, the Joint Service Commendation Medal with Valor device, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Combat V device, two Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals, two Combat Action Ribbons, three Presidential Unit Citations, two Joint Meritorious Unit Awards, two Navy Unit Commendations, and five Good Conduct Medals.
Mr. Byers has a national paramedic’s license and is scheduled to graduate this year from Norwich University, a private military college in Vermont, with a bachelor’s degree in strategic studies and defense analysis, according to the White House.
“He’s making everybody really proud,” Ms. Heyman said. “It’s awesome that somebody from the small town of Grand Rapids has done something like this.”
When reached by phone Tuesday evening, a man identifying himself as Dr. Joseph declined to be interviewed. Calls to Mr. Byers’ family were not immediately returned.
Staff writer Lauren Lindstrom contributed to this report.
Contact Taylor Dungjen at tdungjen@theblade.com, or 419-724-6054, or on Twitter @taylordungjen.
First Published February 3, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
