--- title: "This wounded airman saved his team (with an A-10’s help)" description: "Sgt Robert Gutierrez brought new meaning to the term \"danger close\" while seriously wounded during an intense firefight in Afghanistan in 2009." date: "2021-06-09" modified: "2021-06-10" authors: - name: "Blake Stilwell" job_title: "Editor-In-Chief, Air Force Veteran" link: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/authors/blake/" url: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/popular/shot-airman-saved-team-help-10/" categories: - "Combat Stories" - "Heroes" - "History" - "Veterans" --- # This wounded airman saved his team (with an A-10’s help) ![]() Air Force Tech. Sgt. Robert Gutierrez is a Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) who was awarded the Air Force Cross for heroism during an intense firefight in Afghanistan in 2009. --- JTACS are military personnel who direct combat support aircraft like the A-10, calling in air strikes to support ground operations. Gutierrez was part of a nighttime raid with an Army special forces detachment to capture a high-value Taliban target, a "[brutal]()" man living outside of the city of Herat in Western Afghanistan. The team was attacked with heavy fire from a numerically superior and battle-hardened enemy force. Gutierrez was shot in the chest, his team leader was shot in the leg, and the ten-man element was pinned down in a building with no escape route. > "We were just getting hammered, getting peppered," he recalls in a six-minute interview. He talked to his team's leader who wanted to drop bombs on the enemy targets. > "If you put a bomb on that it'll kill us all," he told his leader. "Guys are getting wounded. Our best chance is a 30mm high-angle strafe." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7s73ceVRGI Gutierrez is having this discussion as bullets pepper the walls behind him, as a medic works on his chest wound, a through-and-through which the medic couldn't find the entrance wound. He is also still holding off Taliban fighters with his M4 rifle. > "This is danger close, I need your initials," he told his team lead. > "How close?" > "Less than 10 meters." Gutierrez needed the support of an A-10 Thunderbolt II, aka "Warthog," whose 30mm GAU-8 Cannon rounds are the size of beer bottles, to make a precision strike on the attacking insurgents. ![]() *An A-10 bombing run, too explosive to support Gutierrez' team (U.S. Air Force photo)* Capt. Ethan Sabin, an A-10 pilot based at Kandahar Airfield, asked a nearby F-16 pilot to mark the target with the laser on his targeting pod. The A-10 attack was so close, Gutierrez's right eardrum burst and his left eardrum was severely damaged from the noise. He lost five-and-a-half pints of blood getting away from the combat zone. After the first A-10 strafing, the medic had to re-inflate Gutierrez' collapsed lung so he could direct two more strafing runs. For four hours, the team held off the enemy fighters and escaped the battlespace. To give an idea of the kind of interactions JTACs have with close-air support pilots in the heat of the moment, the video below is a prime example of the extraordinary actions Gutierrez and airmen like him perform on the battlefield every day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWrgUZbuhiw --- *Feature image: USAF photo* ## Author Blake Stilwell is We Are The Mighty's Editor-in-Chief, covering military news, entertainment, and history, along with veteran education, employment and entrepreneurship. He is a former U.S. Air Force combat cameraman with degrees in Graphic Design, Television and Film, International Relations, Public Relations, Business Management and Middle Eastern Affairs. After leaving the military, he began working in film and television production in New York and Los Angeles, work that included ABC News, NBC Olympics, and HBO Sports. He then spent two years in Washington with White House Communications, before joining the Near East Foundation. At NEF he served as an International Development Fellow, then Communications Officer, and finally, Media Officer for the Middle East and Africa. Based in the Palestinian Territory, he coordinated strategic communications between eight country offices, international media, and government and NGO partners. He began a career focused on writing and editing in 2015 with We Are The Mighty. He left in 2019 for Military.com, but returned as Editor-in-Chief in 2025. Blake’s work has been seen on CBS News, Fox News, CBC, The Chicago Tribune, Task & Purpose, Military Times, Recoil, Skillset, American History, and was shockingly even used in a Supreme Court argument. He is an avid traveler and small business owner in Ohio, where he spends most of his energy fixing up a very old house. ### Author social links [Facebook]() [Twitter]() [Instagram]() [LinkedIn]()