Camarillo native remembers her late husband's heroism
By Daniel Wolowicz camarillo@theacorn.com

Jason and Theresa Cunningham

The medal hangs in the office at Theresa Cunningham-Miller's home.

It's the Air Force Cross, second in significance only to the Medal of Honor. Just 22 have ever been awarded, two of them since Vietnam.

For Cunningham-Miller, however, the medal means little compared to the memory. Her late husband, Senior Airman Jason Cunningham, a parachute rescue medic, received the cross posthumously. Cunningham, 26, was killed in March 2002 while on a mission in Afghanistan.

"The things that I display are not the award," said Cunningham-Miller, a native of Camarillo and a graduate of Rio Mesa High School. "Although I do have it in the office along with the other things that the Air Force has given us, I think the things that we really display are the letters he wrote us and pictures of him."

Cunningham was a member of the elite 38th Rescue Squadron. He was one of 13 troops aboard an MH-47E Chinook helicopter, one of two on a rescue mission to save a Navy SEAL team stranded atop snowy Takur Ghar Mountain in southeastern Afghanistan.

The Chinook approached the landing zone and was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade and gunfire from al Qaeda fighters. Cunningham, a second medic, the pilots and Army Rangers aboard the downed helicopter quickly came under fire as the crash site was surrounded.

Cunningham and the other medic remained inside the damaged helicopter, treating the wounded amid the gunfire.

Because the site was under attack, the Special Forces team in the second helicopter was forced to deploy nearly a quarter of a mile away. They hiked up the steep, snowy mountain to reach the pinned-down soldiers.

Once the second team arrived, a combined unit of Special Forces troops successfully attacked an al Qaeda bunker on a hilltop 160 feet from the crash scene.

Cunningham continued to treat the 10 wounded men in the downed helicopter, still under fire from enemy troops. To protect the wounded, Cunningham and his fellow crew members began moving injured soldiers to the hilltop bunker.

Cunningham was exposed three times to enemy gunfire as he helped carry the wounded through three feet of snow from the downed helicopter to the bunker.

He was shot in the back. The bullet shattered his liver.

Although he was bleeding internally, the Special Forces team knew Cunningham would have to wait until dark for another rescue helicopter to arrive to treat the wounded and take the remaining soldiers to safety.

He died while waiting to be rescued. Military reports said he was directly responsible for saving the lives of 10 men who were injured during the gunfight.

He was among seven U.S. servicemen killed that day. The mountaintop battle was reported to be the deadliest day of combat for an American unit since 18 Rangers and Special Operations soldiers died in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993.

The battle-including Cunningham's actions that day- was recounted in Malcolm McPherson's 2005 book "Robert's Ridge."

"He was a very serious, committed medic," McPherson said. "He spent all his time with the forward surgical team. He was like the kid brother to a lot of the doctors that were there. All things considered, he really deserved to get that Air Force Cross."

Cunningham was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia a few days after he was killed in March. He was eulogized that month at a memorial at St. Mary Magdalen Church, his wife's childhood parish.

Cunningham-Miller, 35, recalls her late husband as "very dynamic." The two met 10 years ago while serving overseas in the Navy. They married six months later.

She said her husband wanted to be a member of the Navy's search and rescue team, but was unable to do so after the Navy changed the unit's entry requirements.

Cunningham, who still wanted to work on a rescue team, was drawn to the Air Force pararescue unit. By now the parents of two baby girls, the couple moved to Moody Air Force Base in Georgia.

Theresa Cunningham enrolled at Valdosta State University and joined the school's ROTC program with plans to become an Air Force officer. Jason was training to become a pararescueman when terrorists struck the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Cunningham was called to duty in February 2002, as his wife worked to become an officer. A month later she learned of her husband's death in the battle atop 10,000-foot Takur Ghar.

As Veterans Day approaches, Cunningham-Miller's thoughts return to her late husband, a native of New Mexico. The couple lived in Camarillo for a brief period in the 1990s. She and their daughters-Hannah, 6, and Kyla, 9- visit Cunningham's grave in Arlington, usually in March. It's a month that commemorates his death, as well as their wedding anniversary. "Do I still love him? Do I still think about him? Yes, I do, but as time goes on, it doesn't hurt as much, or as often," she said.

"When accidents continue," she said, "I still pray for the families because I know what they're going through . . . what they're about to go through."

The first lieutenant, now retired, has remarried and lives in Valdosta, Ga. Her husband, Capt. Mackie Miller, is a helicopter pilot, serving in Afghanistan.