Army captain awarded Medal of Honor for tackling suicide bomber in Afghanistan
President Obama with Medal of Honor recipient Capt. Florent Groberg at the White House.
On the morning of Aug. 8, 2012, Capt. Florent A. Groberg was escorting senior U.S. Army officers and other officials to a security meeting in eastern Afghanistan when a suicide bomber approached the group. Groberg tackled the man, saving the lives of several Americans and Afghans.
On Thursday, Groberg became the 10th living person to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Afghanistan. President Obama bestowed the military’s highest honor during a White House ceremony.
“The truth is Flo said that day was the very worst day of his life,” Obama said, referring to Groberg by his nickname. “Yet the stark reality behind these Medal of Honor ceremonies is all the valor we celebrate, all the courage that inspires us — these actions were demanded amid some of the most dreadful moments of war.”
Dressed in his Army uniform, Groberg, 32, was joined by his family, including his parents, Klara and Larry Groberg. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also attended, along with those who were present that day in 2012 and the families of those who did not return.
According to the Army, Groberg’s unit was ambushed traveling down a street. He remembered seeing a man suspiciously walk backward toward the patrol. “It was eerie and looked suspicious,” Groberg recalled in the Army’s account. “I yelled at him, and he turned around immediately and then started walking towards us.”
Groberg rushed the man along with Sgt. Andrew Mahoney (who earned a Silver Star). “Sgt. Mahoney, to my left, moved in with me and struck him, then Mahoney and I threw him,” Groberg recalled. “I pushed him as hard as I could away from our patrol, because I felt he was a threat. I just wanted to make sure he wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
The bomber set off his vest during the scuffle. Then, a second suicide bomber prematurely detonated another explosive that mostly blasted into a nearby building.
“Had both bombs gone off as planned, who knows how many could have been killed,” Obama said. “Those are the lives Flo helped to save.”
Four people — Army Command Sgt. Maj. Kevin J. Griffin, 45; Army Maj. Thomas E. Kennedy, 35; Air Force Maj. Walter D. Gray, 38; and USAID Foreign Service Officer Ragaei Abdelfattah, 43 — died in the attack.
It was when the president praised the fallen that Groberg showed the most emotion as he stood onstage, nodding when Obama mentioned each of their names and accomplishments.
In brief remarks after the ceremony, Groberg said he was “honored and overwhelmed” to receive the medal and hoped “to be the right carrier” for the victims and their families.
“They made the ultimate sacrifice and didn’t come home,” Groberg said. Their families, he said, are the “true heroes who live through that day, every day, missing one of the members of their families.”
Groberg underwent 33 surgeries for a badly injured left leg. He retired from the Army in July.
“Flo, since he was a little boy, he’d get focused on something, you know a goal? And he’d have to reach it,” Klara Groberg told the Colorado Springs Gazette of her son’s determination to recuperate.
Groberg, born in Poissy, France, became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2001, months before graduating from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Md. In 2006, he earned a bachelor’s degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland.
Two years later, he joined the Army and was commissioned as an officer. He deployed twice to Afghanistan.
He returned as the leader of a personal security detachment for a colonel in 2012.
“All those years of training on the track, in the classroom, out on the field — all of it came together in those few seconds,” Obama said. “He had the instincts and the courage to do what was needed.”
The Medal of Honor, which is awarded for personal acts of valor involving risk to life, has been awarded to more than 3,400 recipients since its establishment during the Civil War.
Twitter: @marcusehoward
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