Photo by John Cross
Chad Malmberg, 27, led 15 troops in an hourlong defense of a supply convoy against 30 insurgents. The Mankatoan will receive the Silver Star, awarded "for gallantry in combat," in a ceremony Saturday.
For an hour, Chad Malmberg led a fierce firefight against 30 insurgents. He defended a convoy against rocket fire and more than a thousand AK-47 rounds from an enemy who is bent, he is now sure, on capturing an American gun truck.
Malmberg was forced to leave his armored vehicle — a rare contingency thrust upon him by insurgents creeping closer to the convoy — and threw grenades and fired a shoulder-mounted rocket.
On that cool 60-degree January night in Iraq, the valuable materiel Malmberg’s convoy was charged with defending was, well, nothing. The flatbed semis he was leading south across the Iraqi desert were empty.
“Ain’t it a bitch,” the 27-year-old Mankato resident said with a laugh.
But a prestigious medal inscribed with “for gallantry in combat,” the Silver Star, makes everything worth it, and Malmberg said he’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. He’ll receive the award during a ceremony Saturday in St. Paul.
He’ll be the first Minnesota National Guard soldier in the 34th Infantry Division, more commonly known as the Red Bulls, believed to receive the award since World War II.
The combat for which Malmberg earned the medal happened Jan. 27, 2007, 16 months into a 22-month deployment.
His military career began soon after he graduated from a St. Paul high school. He joined the Army and spent three years as a paratrooper at a North Carolina base. He moved to Mankato in 2001 to attend Minnesota State University and joined the Guard soon after.
Just one semester away from a winter 2005 graduation, Malmberg learned the soldiers he’d trained with in his West St. Paul-based unit were deploying to Iraq. While he probably could have finished school instead, Malmberg knew he would probably be deployed eventually, and he wanted it to be with the Red Bulls.
Submitted photo
Malmberg, a St. Paul native attending school at Minnesota State University, poses here with some Iraqi children.
He deployed in October 2005, spent six months in training, then went to Iraq for what was supposed to be a yearlong deployment. It was extended to 16 months as a part of President Bush’s troop surge.
In Iraq, Malmberg was a convoy commander, leading semis loaded with food, fuel and supplies from southwestern Iraq near Kuwait to locations throughout Iraq. The trips would begin in the middle of the day and could last for 20 hours.
The heat, which ran as high as 141 degrees, and the all-penetrating sand posed their own hazards to man and machine.
“There were times when you couldn’t see past the hood,” he said.
But the main challenge was roadside bombs and the occasional ambush, usually with only one or two insurgents. Most of the time, convoys rely on the machine guns mounted on trucks to blaze a trail.
So what happened Jan. 27 was not typical.
Submitted photo
Gun trucks like these were Chad Malmberg's home for 20 hours at a time during convoy duty in Iraq. In addition to the stinging sand and suffocating heat, roadside bombs and ambushes were frequent threats.
Malmberg’s convoy was traveling south, near Baghdad. He remembers it as a clear, cool night when the convoy was hit at about 11 p.m.
Typically, convoys avoid attacks by driving through them, but this time they were stuck in what he candidly described as the “kill zone.”
He had to manage military resources — air support and fast-reaction ground units — as well as the actions of the 15 soldiers he was commanding.
But his 15 more than stood up to their 30.
The gunners’ machine guns are “an extension of their body,” so that “when the enemy fires, the enemy dies.”
The insurgents began the assault at about 500 meters, then maneuvered to within 20.
After hearing about similar tactics used elsewhere, Malmberg realized the insurgents were attempting to surround and capture a gun truck with the three soldiers inside.
So he left his truck, threw some hand grenades and fired a shoulder-mounted rocket.
“It was just surreal. You didn’t have time to think about being afraid,” he said.
Afterward, he did think and said he still remembers that battle daily.
What he seems to be most proud of isn’t the insurgents he killed, but the fact that none of his troops were injured. He repeats that fact more than once.
Malmberg plans to graduate from MSU with a law enforcement degree in a few months, then attend police skills training with the goal of joining the St. Paul Police Department.
Looking back, he doesn’t regret the years he spent in North Carolina and all the grueling, repetitive training. Nor does he regret anything about the battle he views as the culmination of that training.
It taught him a lesson: “Good things don’t just come easily.”
War was stressful, competitive, dangerous.
But he says it made him more capable and earning the Silver Star gives him the confidence to go through the rest of his life with an achievement that speaks for itself.
“That’s thanks enough,” he said.
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