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Air Force man awarded Military Merit Medal
Topic Started: Oct 11 2007, 09:44 PM (583 Views)
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http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/...rticle_id=93844

By Joel Guinto
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 02:37pm (Mla time) 10/11/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- Airman Second Class Gerald Dula, who battled Abu Sayyaf rebels in Basilan two weeks ago, was awarded a Military Merit Medal.

Philippine Air Force (PAF) Chief Lieutenant General Horacio Tolentino conferred the award on Dula in his hospital bed at the Armed Forces of the Philippines Medical Center in Quezon City.

Tolentino stressed the importance of airmen in the battlefield, whose efforts have often been overshadowed by frontline fighting units like the Army and the Marines.

"The Air Force is engaged in the fight against terrorism," Tolentino said.

Dula, and a buddy, Airman First Class Sandoval Manuel, were embedded with troops from the 4th Scout Ranger Company, who along with the Army Special Forces engaged the Abu Sayyaf and suspected Moro rebel reinforcements, said PAF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Epifanio Panzo Jr.

As forward air controllers (FAC), the two airmen directed air support for the ground troops in the encounter that left two Army troopers, and aside from Dula, seven Army soldiers and a militiaman wounded, Panzo said.

"I am happy with this honor, not just for myself, but for my unit as well," Dula said.

Asked if he was willing to return to Basilan, Dula said: "That's our job, if they ask me to come back."

Dula is assigned with the 710th Special Operations Wing (SPOW). Other airmen in his unit were tasked to secure military engineering troops who were building a circumferential road in Basilan as part of the government's "humanitarian offensive."

Tolentino also praised Airmen Second Class Rhinefield Paas and Reynold Guiam who served as FAC during an encounter between Army troopers and Abu Sayyaf rebels in Talipao town, Sulu province last Monday.

He said Paas and Guiam directed an MG-520 attack helicopter to the encounter site.

"The air support came and the enemy suffered a direct hit. Our rockets hit the enemy," Tolentino said, adding that even as the remains of only one Abu Sayyaf member was recovered from the scene, others had been killed based on the accounts of ground troops.

In a previous interview, Major General Ruben Rafael, chief of the counter-terrorism unit Joint Task Force Comet in Sulu, acknowledged that the air reinforcements forced the Abu Sayyaf rebels to retreat.

Since July 10, 63 soldiers have been killed in fighting with the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf and Moro rebels in the southern island provinces of Sulu and Basilan.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has given security forces until 2010 to defeat the bandits, as well as communist rebels, and contain Moro insurgents.

:ssalute:
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