Army Capt. Florent Groberg receives the Medal of Honor for confronting Afghan suicide bomber

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Washington Post:

Dan Lamothe

November 12 2015

 

As the dust settled following a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan in August 2012, four Americans lay mortally wounded and several others were seriously injured. But the ambush could have been far worse were it not for the quick-thinking of a former college track star who joined the Army four years earlier: Capt. Florent Groberg.

 

Groberg, 32, received the Medal of Honor on Thursday in a White House ceremony, and was celebrated for his guts, quick-thinking and willingness to put himself in harm’s way to protect his fellow soldiers. Moments before the first of two suicide bombers detonated near his patrol in Konar province on Aug. 8, 2012, Groberg confronted one of them, shoving him away from the patrolling soldiers and knocking him to the ground seconds before the explosion.

 

[After confronting a suicide bomber, this soldier must swap running for the Medal of Honor]

 

“Today, we honor Flo because his actions prevented an even greater catastrophe,” President Obama said. “You see, by pushing the bomber away from the formation, the explosion occurred farther from our forces, and on the ground instead of in the open air. And while Flo didn’t know it at the time, that explosion also caused a second unseen bomb to detonate before it was in place. Had both bombs gone off as planned, who knows how many would have been killed?”

 

Groberg, who made a name for himself as a runner at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Md., and later at the University of Maryland-College Park, suffered life-threatening wounds to his left leg that led to 33 surgeries, he told The Washington Post in an interview last week. Surgeons saved his leg, but he is unable to run now because half of his calf muscle was blown off, he said.

 

(Snip)

 

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