Guard Chaplain Receives Soldier’s Medal

Capt. Kyle Franklin, a chaplain in the South Carolina Army National Guard, received the Soldier’s Medal for Heroism he displayed while rescuing two persons from a burning automobile and providing first aid to two others in February 2013. According to official records, Franklin witnessed a head-on collision between two cars as he was driving in Eastover, S.C. Seeing that one of the cars immediately caught fire, Franklin quickly moved to the vehicle and pulled the driver out. He then returned to pull out the passenger, a woman who was badly injured. He then went to the aid of the persons in the second car, and stayed on the scene until the Columbia, S.C. fire department arrived. The crash victims all survived. “They would certainly not be with us today if he had not been there at that moment,” Rodney Jenkins, the chief of the Columbia fire department, said during a May 3 ceremony at McEntire Joint National Guard Base, S.C. Franklin is attached to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-151st Security and Support Aviation Battalion. The Soldier’s Medal is the nation’s highest honor for valor in non-combat operations.