Sergeant Joshua L. Wheeler was a soldier in the United States Army who was killed in action in Iraq in October 2015. He was a member of the Delta Force, an elite special operations unit, and was part of a team conducting a raid on an ISIS prison in the town of Hawija. Sergeant Wheeler was the first American soldier to be killed in combat in Iraq since the United States resumed operations in the country in 2014. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star, among other honors.
Introduction
Joshua Wheeler had a difficult childhood and few options in a thinly populated, economically struggling patch of eastern Oklahoma near the border. The experience from his childhood helped shape him as a man who was comfortable with significant amounts of responsibility, family members said.
“In that area, if you didn’t go to college, you basically had a choice of the oil fields or the military,” said his uncle, Jack Shamblin. “The Army really suited him; he always had such robust energy and he always wanted to help people, and he felt he was doing that.”
The Army offered an escape, but it turned into much more. He made a significant career in uniform, first as Army Ranger and later as a highly decorated combat veteran of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the Army’s elite Delta Force, a secretive counterterrorism force first established in the late 1970s.
Military Carrer
Joshua Wheeler enlisted in 1995; in 1997, he joined the Army Rangers, a specially trained group within the Army.
In 2004, he was assigned to Army Special Operations Command, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., which includes Delta Force. This highly selective unit carries out some of the military’s riskiest operations. He completed specialized training in several fields, including parachute jumping, mountaineering, leading infantry units, explosives, and urban combat.
Death
On October 22, 2015, he became the first U.S. service member to die in combat against the Islamic State after getting hit by small-arms fire during a raid carried out by Kurdish forces on a militant-run prison in Hawijah, Iraq. The mission freed some 70 prisoners who U.S. officials think would have been executed and dumped in a mass grave later that day.
When Kurdish commandos went on a helicopter raid to rescue about 70 hostages who were about to be executed by Islamic State militants, the plan called for the Americans who accompanied them to offer support, not join in the action, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said on Friday. But then the Kurdish attack on the prison where the hostages were held stalled, and Sergeant Wheeler responded.
“He ran to the sound of the guns,” Mr. Carter said. “Obviously, we’re very saddened that he lost his life,” he said, adding, “I’m immensely proud of this young man.”
A former Delta Force officer who had commanded Sergeant Wheeler in Iraq and had been briefed on the mission said that the Kurdish fighters, known as Peshmerga, tried to blast a hole in the compound’s outer wall but could not. Sergeant Joshua Wheeler and another American, part of a team of 10 to 20 Delta Force operators who were present, ran up to the wall, breached it with explosives, and were the first ones through the hole.
“When you blow a hole in a compound wall, all the enemy fire gets directed toward that hole, and that is where he was,” said the former officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the operation.
The military does not officially acknowledge the existence of the Delta Force, the Army counterpart to Navy SEAL teams.
The mission was successful, and Delta Force freed more than 70 hostages. A few Peshmerga fighters were injured, five ISIL militants were detained during the operation, and approximately 20 were killed.
Army Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler sacrificed his life for others who were being held captive by militants and his comrades of Delta Force while under fire; he received posthumously the Silver Star and Purple Heart medal for his actions on that day.
Achievements
Sergeant Wheeler was a veteran of 14 deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, with a chest full of medals. His honors included four Bronze Stars with the letter V, awarded for valor in combat, and seven Bronze Stars for heroic or meritorious service in a combat zone.
Burial place
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington
Arlington County
Virginia, USA
Plot: Section 60, Grave 10348
Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler gave his last full measure in that rescue mission, and we all owe him our respect; our heart goes out to his loved ones for the loss they are experiencing.
Respect and Honor 🙏🏾💐