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Fallen Marine Honored With Intelligence Medal for Valor
(July 2, 2011) |
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National Intelligence Director James R.
Clapper, left, presents the National
Intelligence Medal for Valor to the parents of
Marine Sgt. Lucas T. Pyeatt, a signals
intelligence team leader who was killed while on
patrol in Helmand province, Afghanistan, Feb. 5,
2011. Cynthia and Lon "Scott" Pyeatt, above,
accepted the award on behalf of their son during
a ceremony today at the National Intelligence
Directorate headquarters in McLean, Va. DOD photo by Karen Parrish |
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MCLEAN, Va., June 29, 2011 – The parents of a
Marine Corps sergeant killed in Afghanistan
accepted a posthumous National Intelligence
Medal for Valor on their son's behalf at the
National Intelligence Directorate headquarters
here today.
 Sgt.
Lucas T. Pyeatt, 24, a signals intelligence team
leader from West Chester, Ohio, died Feb. 5
during combat operations in Helmand province. He
was assigned to the 2nd Radio Battalion, II
Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group,
Camp Lejeune, N.C.National Intelligence Director
James R. Clapper presented the award to Lon
“Scott” Pyeatt and Cynthia Pyeatt during the
small ceremony this morning.
“We're here
today to pay tribute to an outstanding Marine
and an extraordinary intelligence professional,”
Clapper said. “The Marine Corps has already
recognized |
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Luke, so this is ... a small token of appreciation
and respect and esteem from the intelligence
community.” |
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Clapper said Pyeatt was a “standout young man,” a Civil War
buff and an accomplished bass player, who was sensitive
enough to learn American Sign Language so he could
communicate with, and interpret for, a deaf friend.
“He was an Eagle Scout ... [and] a young man who lived his
faith, including serving on a mission in Russia,” Clapper
added.
After Pyeatt enlisted in the Marine Corps, he
quickly excelled as a signals intelligence collector,
Clapper said.
“In four short years, Luke proved
himself time and again,” he added.
During boot camp,
language training, and after assignment to Camp Lejuene, the
young Marine consistently excelled at his assigned tasks,
the director said.
As a corporal, Pyeatt was selected
to be a team leader, and deployed to Afghanistan, Clapper
noted.
“He continued to set the example,” the
director said. “Because of his job, he knew he couldn't be
on every patrol [but] insisted on conducting the very first
one, in a heavily contested area.”
The young leader
wanted to be certain he knew what his team would be going
through when they went “outside the wire,” Clapper said, but
the young Marine died during that first patrol.
During a conversation with Pyeatt's parents before the
ceremony, Clapper said, Cynthia Pyeatt handed him a memorial
card for her son that included a quote from English
economist and philosopher John Stuart Mill.
During
his remarks, Clapper shared the quote on the card: “War is
an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed
and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which
thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person
who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing
which is more important than his own personal safety, is a
miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless
made and kept so by the exertions of better men than
himself.”
Clapper then presented a framed citation
and the medal to Pyeatt's parents.
The young Marine's
National Intelligence Medal for Valor is the 10th awarded
and the fourth presented posthumously, a spokesman for the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence said.
The medal was established Oct. 1, 2008, to acknowledge
the “extraordinary and mostly unsung accomplishments of
intelligence community professionals,” he said.
The
award is second only to the Intelligence Cross in the
intelligence community's medals for bravery, the spokesman
said.
Cynthia Pyeatt said she and her family don't
know the details of what her son did in Afghanistan to earn
such a prestigious medal.
“We're not supposed to
know, so he did that right,” she said. “I just wish he could
be here.”
Her son was a patriot, she said, who loved
his country.
“He believed in the Constitution, and he
believed in people having an obligation,” she said.
Pyeatt's father retired from the Air Force as a chief master
sergeant after a 30-year career. Cynthia Pyeatt said when
her son spoke of enlisting, she asked him why his father's
service wasn't enough of a contribution for the family.
“He said, ‘That was dad, and this is my time,'” she
recounted.
Not everyone can be in the military or be
a Marine, Cynthia Pyeatt said, but “you can better your
community, you can better the world you live in.”
“If
more people would look at our country and say, ‘I can step
up and do something ... to make this better,'” she added, that
would be a tribute not only to her son but also to all the
other service members who have been hurt or killed serving
the nation.
“We're one family, and there are
thousands of families like us that have huge holes in their
lives,” she said. “I wonder sometimes if it's worth it, but
he believed in what he was doing, and I owe him the respect
of respecting his decision.”
Pyeatt's sister, Emily
Smalley, and her two children also attended the event, as
did members of the 2nd Radio Battalion; Marine Brig. Gen.
Vincent R. Stewart, Marine Corps director of intelligence;
and former secretary of the Army and of Veterans Affairs,
retired Army Lt. Gen. Togo D. West Jr. | |
By Karen Parrish
American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2011 |
Marine Cpl. Lucas T.
Pyeatt's Memorial Service |
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