WASHINGTON — A former Army medic who received the nation’s highest military honor Monday for braving heavy gunfire to save lives in Afghanistan was rejected by the military the first time he tried to enlist.
“I can’t believe they rejected you. Boy that was a bad mistake. But they made up for it, right,” President Donald Trump told former Staff Sgt. Ronald Shurer II at a formal White House ceremony where 250 people gathered to laud Shurer for his heroic actions in 2008 in a remote part of Afghanistan.
Shurer, a native of Fairbanks, Alaska, was a senior medical sergeant in the special forces on April 6, 2008, when his team encountered machine gun and sniper fire and rocket-propelled grenades from militants.
Shurer stabilized one soldier, then fought his way through a barrage of bullets and up a mountain to the lead members of the unit. There, he treated and stabilized four more soldiers. Shurer helped evacuate them, carrying and lowering the wounded down the steep mountainside, using his body to shield them from enemy fire and shrapnel. After he loaded the wounded in an evacuation helicopter, Shurer went back up the mountain to fight.