Our first honoree is Corporal Carl Sampson from Picayune, Mississippi. Carl was a reservist in the Army National Guard with the 890th Engineering Battalion and was deployed to Iraq. On September 12, 2003 Corporal Sampson's supply truck came under attack outside of Fallujah.
CW3 Michael Wells of Slidell, Louisiana was a reservist in the Louisiana Army National Guard and working as a commercial helicopter pilot servicing the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. In February, 2004 he was deployed to Camp Anaconda in Balad, Iraq. On September 21, 2004, as the Blackhawk helicopter he was piloting had just taken off, mechanical failure caused the aircraft to be uncontrollable.