New Mexico Minuteman - Spring 2012 - Keep Trees

NMNG fl ight medic earns national Aviation
NCO of the Year for combat excellence
By Maj. Christopher A. Holland
Commander, Charlie Co., 1st Bn., 171st Aviation Regiment
The Army Aviation Association of America
has named Sgt. Clifford Aughe as the
recipient of the Rodney J. T. Yano Army
Aviation Noncommissioned Offi cer of
the Year for 2011 award. Aughe currently
serves as a fl ight medic with the Santa
Fe-based unit, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion,
171st Aviation Regiment. That unit
has been conducting combat air medical
evacuation missions in Helmand Province,
Afghanistan, since June 2011. Aughe
is slated to receive his award on April 2,
2012, at the National AAAA convention in
Nashville, Tenn.
Each year the AAAA honors a noncommissioned
officer in the rank of sergeant
(E-5) or above who has made an outstanding
individual contribution to Army
aviation during the year. The award is
named in honor of Sgt. 1st Class Rodney
J. T. Yano, a helicopter crew chief killed
in action in Vietnam in 1969. Yano posthumously
received the Medal of Honor
for saving the lives of the other members
of his helicopter crew after being mortally
wounded.
The AAAA selected Aughe for this honor
on the basis of his technical skill and his
dedication to the medevac mission. The
AAAA selection committee also recognized
that Aughe has invariably gone the
extra mile to train, mentor and lead junior
Soldiers in his unit.
Since June 2011, Aughe’s unit has
been conducting medevac operations
in support of U.S. Marines in Helmand
Province, Afghanistan. Helmand Province
has seen signifi cant kinetic activity, and
during one 90-day period, Aughe took
part in more than 150 combat medevac
missions. The patients included U.S.
Marines, Afghan National Army soldiers,
local Afghan citizens, and Taliban fi ghters.
On every mission, Aughe gave 100%
and brought his 20-plus years of emergency
medicine experience to bear for
the patients under his care. The result
was that in each case the patient received
the best medical care possible from the
pickup site to the dropoff point at the
medical treatment facility. Dozens of U.S.
Marines, allied Soldiers and civilians are
alive today because of Aughe’s skill and
uncompromising excellence.
Many of Aughe’s medevac missions
have involved severe life-threatening injuries.
Helmand Province is riddled with
improvised explosive devices, and about
40 percent of Aughe’s medevac missions
resulted from IED blasts. Aughe treated
more than 20 Marines with amputations
and many with double or triple amputations.
Dozens more suffered from gunshot
wounds. The severity of these wounds
speaks to the challenges that Aughe faced
each day during months of sustained
combat. On each occasion he rose to
the challenge, calmly administering the
best medical care possible under diffi cult
combat circumstances.
One mission serves as an example of
the trying conditions that Aughe faced on
a daily basis. On that mission the helicopter
crew landed their aircraft at a point-ofinjury
to evacuate a U.S. Marine who had
lost a leg in an IED explosion. Due to the
conditions of the landing area, the helicopter
crew was unable to land next to
the wounded Marine; instead they landed
about 100 meters away. The landing site
was muddy, and upon touchdown, the
aircraft sank a foot into the mud. Without
hesitation, Aughe jumped from the aircraft
and slogged through the muddy minefi eld
to the wounded Marine. With the help of
the injured Marine’s comrades, Aughe
dragged the dismembered patient 100
meters through the knee-deep mud to the
waiting helicopter. Covered in mud, Aughe
hauled the Marine on board the helicopter
and calmly began medical treatment. He
stabilized and comforted the patient during
the 20-minute fl ight to the medical treatment
facility.
Aughe has served in the New Mexico
Army National Guard since 2009; his current
tour in Afghanistan is his third campaign.
He fi rst joined the Army in 1981 and
served with the 82nd Airborne Division. He
participated in the invasion of Grenada –
Operation Urgent Fury – in 1982 and left
the Army two years later. In civilian life, he
studied emergency medicine and became
a paramedic and later a registered nurse.
He rejoined the military in 2006, fi rst with
the Colorado Army National Guard and
then with the New Mexico Army National
Guard. Between 2007 and 2008 he served
as a combat medic in Iraq with a Special
Forces unit. He lives with his family in Alamosa,
Colo., where he continues his work
in the fi eld of emergency medicine as a
helicopter fl ight nurse.
The other members of Charlie Company
are very proud that one of their own
is receiving national recognition from the
AAAA. “Sgt. Cliff Aughe is as humble and
selfl ess as he is quick and relentless to
provide care for those who can no longer
take care of themselves on the battlefi eld,”
said Staff Sgt. Christian Pool, a fl ight operations
NCO with Charlie Co. “His nature
and values epitomize everything that the
medevac mission and the NCO corps
stand for.”
Sgt. Heath Petty—who nominated
Aughe for AAAA’s top NCO award—said
he did so because Aughe personifi es the
principles of the NCO Creed. “The NCO
Creed stresses that the role of the NCO is
to ensure the accomplishment of the mission
and the welfare of the Soldiers under
that NCO’s command. Sgt. Aughe lives by
those principles 24 hours a day, each and
every day.”
Spring 2012 / NEW MEXICO National Guard 9