Marine Receives Silver Star, Purple Heart

A Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based reconnaissance Marine earned the Silver Star and Purple Heart medals for heroism he displayed during a July, 2012 ambush in Afghanistan. Staff Sgt. Timothy Williams was on a mission to find an enemy weapons cache with fellow Marines and an Afghan army contingent when they were ambushed. When his team leader was shot during the ensuing firefight, Williams defied oncoming enemy fire and rushed to his comrade’s aid. Upon retrieving the wounded Marine, Williams carried him 1,000 feet to safety. With that accomplished, Williams then returned to the fight and continued firing upon the attackers throughout the 10-hour firefight. “I couldn’t be ore proud of all that he has done,” Jill Williams, the Marine’s wife, said during the Jan. 7 award ceremony at Camp Las Flores on Pendleton. Williams, of Hudson Mich., had prior service in the Navy on the destroyer Stout before joining the Marines after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and the Pentagon.