{"id":39610,"date":"2023-04-17T21:31:37","date_gmt":"2023-04-17T21:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2023\/04\/17\/airman-earns-distinguished-flying-cross-for-response-in-2019-firefight\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:15:07","slug":"airman-earns-distinguished-flying-cross-for-response-in-2019-firefight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/your-air-force\/2023\/04\/17\/airman-earns-distinguished-flying-cross-for-response-in-2019-firefight\/","title":{"rendered":"Airman earns Distinguished Flying Cross for response in 2019 firefight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Master Sgt. Zachary Cooper last month received the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Pentagon\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airforcetimes.com\/news\/your-air-force\/2022\/04\/06\/airmen-awarded-distinguished-flying-cross-for-orchestrating-first-evacuation-from-kabul-airport\/\" target=\"_blank\">highest award for extraordinary aerial achievement<\/a>, for his courage and quick thinking when a nighttime ground patrol turned deadly in Afghanistan in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He scrambled to fix a problem that prevented his aircraft from firing its weapons, saving the lives of 184 U.S. and partner troops who faced \u201cintense and effective enemy fire\u201d from insurgent fighters on the ground, according to his award citation. He joins thousands of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airforcetimes.com\/news\/your-air-force\/2022\/11\/23\/a-10c-pilot-earns-top-flying-award-for-combat-successes-in-afghanistan\/\" target=\"_blank\">other American aviators<\/a> who have been recognized for their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airforcetimes.com\/news\/your-air-force\/2021\/11\/12\/a-harrowing-night-in-afghanistan-earns-a-10-pilot-the-distinguished-flying-cross-10-years-later\/\" target=\"_blank\">exceptional efforts in air warfare<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cooper served as a tactical systems operator with the 363rd Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/afghanistan\/\" target=\"_blank\">Afghanistan<\/a>, where he flew with Air Force special operators in missions targeting al-Qaida and the Taliban.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tactical systems operators are airborne intelligence specialists who, as part of the crew on a special operations aircraft, can vacuum up data from the surrounding area using interchangeable surveillance kits onboard and help direct operations accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Feb. 8, 2019, Cooper was part of a team guarding ground forces from an unnamed armed aircraft over Helmand province, the Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, when his plane \u2014 the only armed asset overhead \u2014 couldn\u2019t fire its weapons. The citation did not describe the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/your-air-force\/2023\/01\/10\/first-air-national-guard-flight-nurse-receives-highest-flying-award\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"202\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/lunning.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Air National Guard flight nurse first to receive highest flying award<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">An officer in the Minnesota Air National Guard was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross medal for her heroism rescuing troops in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cooper figured out a way to resolve the problem in time for the crew to conduct multiple airstrikes on enemy positions, the citation said. Several strikes targeted enemies in \u201cdanger close\u201d range of U.S. and partner forces, it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe expertly contacted tactical command and control early in the sortie, alerting them of the dire and deteriorating ground situation, and requested additional close air support assets,\u201d the citation said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">F-16 Fighting Falcon jets came to the rescue, killing multiple enemy fighters and destroying buildings. Cooper also called in a medical evacuation for a badly wounded foreign service member.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cooper received the award at a March 28 ceremony at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia. He enlisted in the Air Force in 2005 as a fighter jet maintainer and later retrained as an airborne ISR operator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt was one of those nights, like many others, where things just clicked for us as a team and we were able to do the right things at the right times,\u201d he said in a release. \u201cIt really was a team effort and the professionalism of all involved was second to none.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Master Sgt. Zachary Cooper saved the lives of 184 U.S. and partner troops who faced \u201cintense and effective enemy fire\u201d from insurgents in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":72105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":67,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["your-military","news","home","left-column"],"primary_category":"your-military"}}},"categories":[101,24,88,16,26,67],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3392],"class_list":["post-39610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-home","category-left-column","category-news","category-newsletters","category-your-air-force"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"GFGQLAVYFREDFBI4T2NTZC2JUE","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-air-force\/2023\/04\/17\/airman-earns-distinguished-flying-cross-for-response-in-2019-firefight\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Airman earns Distinguished Flying Cross for response in 2019 firefight - Air Force TImes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Master Sgt. Zachary Cooper saved the lives of 184 U.S. and partner troops who faced \u201cintense and effective enemy fire\u201d from insurgents in Afghanistan.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Airman earns Distinguished Flying Cross for response in 2019 firefight\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Master Sgt. 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