News

Robins Airman earns Bronze Star

  • Published
  • By Wayne Crenshaw
  • 78 ABW/PA
Robins Air Force Base, GA --  In his first tour of duty in Iraq, Senior Master Sgt. Jason Stokes didn't have a lot to do.

An assistant collection manager for a Joint Special Operations Task Force, he found combat missions to be sporadic. But when he deployed again in November, things had changed. The troop surge had taken place and the Air Force was aggressively pursuing high-value individual enemies. Sergeant Stokes was now supervising the allocation of over 20 manned and unmanned Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance sorties daily.
"It was much more rewarding," he said of his second deployment. "It was very busy."

On Oct. 1, He was rewarded for his service in Iraq with a Bronze Star, the fourth highest combat medal.

By the time his second tour ended in May, he had been involved in the execution of 829 direct-action, time-sensitive missions, said Lt. Col. Mark Mocio, commander of the 578th Aircraft Sustainment Squadron, of which Sergeant Stokes is a member. It was the first bronze medal for the 578th ACSS since the unit stood up in 2005, Colonel Mocio said.

Speaking to about 75 people attending the medal ceremony, Colonel Mocio joked that the key stats he was reading were inappropriately highlighted in pink. Those included that the missions in which Sergeant Stokes provided critical leadership resulted in the capture of 342 high-value individuals, 419 enemies killed in action, 51 enemies wounded in action and 1,960 suspected anti-coalition forces detained.

Colonel Mocio said when Sergeant Stokes recognized that weather was a common cause of mission failure, he began coordinating with Combat Air Operations Center air asset managers and weather forecasters to identify low-risk launch and recovery windows for missions involving unmanned aircraft, despite initial recommendations to ground them.

"It shows what can happen when you get good people thinking outside the box," Colonel Mocio said.

Sergeant Stokes, who has been stationed at Robins for two years, credited his success in Iraq to the support of his colleagues back at Robins.

"I feel very undeserving of this level of merit," he said. "The impact we had when we were over there was pretty incredible. None of that could have happened without you guys doing what you do back home."