First Lieutenant Malcolm M. Webb will be awarded one of the Civil Air Patrol’s rarest awards, The Silver Medal of Valor, on Saturday, February 12th, 2011 at a ceremony at the Garrison at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis.
The Silver Medal of Valor award acknowledges the actions of Lt. Malcolm Webb during an attempt to rescue two people who had become trapped in rocks under a waterfall in a river in North Carolina in June 2009.
Civil Air Patrol’s National Commander, Maj. General Amy Courter, will attend the ceremony and present the award to Lt. Webb. The criteria for the award state that the individual must have demonstrated “distinguished and conspicuous heroic action, at the risk of life, above and beyond the call of normal duty.”
Lt. Webb will be the fourth Hoosier to receive the Silver Medal of Valor since its inception in 1962. Nationwide, the Silver Medal of Valor has been awarded less than 200 times in history, often posthumously.
“While the circumstances are of a great tragedy, we are reminded that selfless acts prevent further loss of life,” Indiana Wing Commander Col. Richard Griffith said. “Lt. Webb put others’ safety above that of his own and we honor his efforts with our Silver Medal of Valor.”
Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, is a nonprofit organization, founded in 1941, with more than 61,000 members nationwide. CAP, in its Air Force auxiliary role, performs 90 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and was credited by the AFRCC with saving 113 lives in fiscal year 2010. Its volunteers also perform homeland security, disaster relief and drug interdiction missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. CAP members play a leading role in aerospace education, serve as mentors to the more than 26,000 young people currently participating in CAP cadet programs, and partner with Wreaths Across America to honor America’s veterans. Indiana Wing CAP is comprised of 1350 members, 8 aircraft and more than 30 local squadrons across the state.
For more about the Indiana Wing of the Civil Air Patrol find us on Facebook and Twitter @IndianaCAP or:
1 comment:
Congratulations.
Post a Comment