Lieutenant Breitwieser Receives Bronze Star!

Naval Air Station Fallon, Nev. – Lieutenant Ricademus Breitwieser received the Bronze Star for meritorious service while deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. The award was presented at the Silver State Club at NAS Fallon on August 8th.

 The Bronze Star medal is a United States Armed Forces individual military decoration which may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service. "

It is gratifying because the Navy awards about a tenth of the submissions they consider," said Breitwieser. "However, I wanted the same award for the rest of my team….Those guys deserve what I got…"

Breitwieser was deployed to Afghanistan from January 2007 thru April 2008 and served as the Executive Officer (XO) for the Navy Garrison, Camp Clark, Khowst, Afghanistan.

"As XO, I was responsible to the senior mentor for maintaining good order and discipline for our team. I dealt with personnel issues to include making sure we had the right mix of skill sets and direction to accomplish the mission. I did a lot of admin stuff like calendars, reports and awards. I had to delegate responsibilities and tasks to the right people to accomplish things that we generally had no idea how to do. I mentored numerous Afghan officers in the day-to-day operations of running an Army garrison," said Breitwieser.

As an O-3 in the Navy filling an O-4 billet, he was in charge of 24 U.S. personnel, including three O-4’s. He also mentored 85 members of the Afghan National Army, including a Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels and a Major. "Khowst, Afghanistan looks much like Fallon: desert and mountains, same weather and elevation," said Breitwieser.

"The people really like Americans thanks to our involvement during the Russian conflict. They are concerned we are going to leave and everything will go back to being like the time of the Taliban. I think we are more appreciated in Afghanistan than in Iraq."

 Lieutenant Ricademus Breitwieser (right) shakes NAS Fallon Command Officer, Captain Michael Glaser's hand during the presentation of a Bronze Star medal. The NAS Fallon search and rescue pilot served as the Executive Officer of a nation-building team in Afghanistan for 15 months.