Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain is working to ensure that the four Marines and Navy petty officer who died in the terror attack on the Marine recruiting station in Chattanooga recieve Purple Heart medals for their sacrifice.
Some of the Marines may have saved their fellow service members by ushering them to safety before returning to try to neutralize Abdulazeez.
“While I cannot share specific details about what happened that morning, our Marines reacted the way you would expect — rapidly going from room to room. They got their fellow Marines to safety,” Maj. Gen. Paul Brier, commander of the 4th Marine Division, said during a news conference Wednesday. “Once they got them to safety, some willingly ran back into the fight.”
Twenty Marines and two Navy corpsmen were in the naval reserve center inspecting their equipment after returning from a training program, Gen. Brier told reporters, indicating that the massacre could have been much worse if not for the Marines’ acts of courage.
Lt. Cmdr. Timothy White, the support center’s commanding officer, used his personal firearm to engage Abdulazeez during the attack, the Navy Times reported. Four sources confirmed that the officer’s actions were included in a report distributed to senior Navy leaders after the attack.
Taryn✨
