American Proud

When athletes play sports in high school in many cases many of us have no idea what might be in the future of those athletes.  We are proud when we see them on future playing fields either in college and for the rare few play professional sports.  There  are times when some of those athletes do non-athletic actions that even though this is a sports blog those actions are hard to ignore.

Today I am proud to be an American with the action of one former Rocky Mount Gryphon Jeremiah Parvin.   Parvin played football and baseball and graduated from RMSH in the late nineties and went on to Davidson College.  Once a college graduate Parvin enlisted in the U S Air Force. 

Officers Candidate school and flight school and Parvin was assigned to fly  the A10C The Warhog.  October 28th 2008 now serving a tour of duty in Afghanistan Captain Jeremiah "Bull" Parvin  along with his wing support Lieutenant Cavasos were circling their area of responsibility when a call came that six marines were pinned down under heavy fire with injuries.  There was no way to get other ground troops to the area so the Warhogs were sent 320 miles  or about an hour flight to help support the marines.

The area the marines were pinned down was not on any map at Parvin's disposal plus extreme weather and low cloud cover  didn't make finding the marines easy in the mountainous terrain  of Afghanistan.  The marines on the ground were able to help Parvin to find them once he was over head.  He could tell through gun fire that the marines were under heavy attack

Flying low Parvin turned on his A-10 Overt exterior lights to help distinguish who was enemy and who was friendly.  This also gave the enemy and easy target to shoot at and for over two hours engaged hostile action.  During the battle with the attention now on shooting down the A-10's  the marines were able to escape to safety.  During the battle Parvin destroyed many enemy positions with some as close as forty yards from the marines.

Once the battle was over Parvin's team return to base which was more than a hours flight away.  Parvin turned in a normal routine report.  Since 2008 Parvin has flown some 280 hours of combat in the war zones and 83 sorties.  Those marines saved by Parvin's  crew did not think that that mission was your every day run of the mill action.

This past January 29th Parvin now stationed at Moody Air Force base Georgia  and now a Major was presented with the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor for his action on that night of October 28th 2008 saving the lives of those six marines.  The DFC with Valor was presented by Major General H. D. Polumbo Jr. the commander of the US Ninth Air Force.

His wife Vanessa and father Joe were there along with many  others stationed at Moody AFB but also there was USMC Master Gunnery Sargent Richard Wells who was one of the six marines saved that night.  Wells stated that it was the first time in his life that he thought 'this is it, we are all going to die, we're not going to make it out of this'''.  If it wasn't for him I would not be here today"'.

I have never met Major Parvin and probably never will but as an American who is proud of what our country stands for I am proud of his action while standing for that belief.  We have so many people serving our country and doing us proud  and to think he is from Rocky Mount and on top of that a Gryphon.  Major Jeremiah "Bull" Parvin  THANK YOU!!!!.

If you would like to read the story    you can go to http://globalaviationreport.com/2015/01/30distinguished-flying-cross-with-valor-a-10c-pilo...  just google Major Jeremiah Parvin and there are many accounts of the ceremony and there is one that you can watch the presentation.  How wonderful this modern world of computers has taken us to we can watch almost anything happening in the world.