- [Narrator] Defense News is proudly sponsored
by Navy Federal Credit Union.
If you're a member of our Nation's Armed Forces,
the Department of Defense or if your family is,
we'd be proud to serve you too.
- [Reporter] On this edition of "Defense News Weekly",
a special episode featuring some of the bravest men
and women in the military.
We hear stories of danger, heroism, quick thinking,
and self-sacrifice as we tick through the military branches
to highlight some of the most heroic acts by men
and women in uniform from the past year.
Set against the backdrop
of the 2025 Service members of the Year Gala,
it's our annual chance to feature stories
of incredible gallantry from around the armed forces.
Join us to take a break from the latest in news and analysis
to celebrate heroic service members
on this edition of "Defense News Weekly".
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Welcome back to "Defense News Weekly".
Each year, military times gets the chance to recognize
some of the most auspicious acts of service
around the military
with the annual service members of the year gala.
Today, we bring you stories of some of the 2025 recipients
featuring examples of incredible fortitude
in the face of danger
Up first, we learn about a soldier
from the 160th special operations aviation regimen
known as the Night Stalkers
and his efforts to save a brother in arms.
Have a look.
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- [Ben] In the army, we have an ethos
and the ethos is I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat. I will never quit.
I will never leave a fall on comrade.
Sergeant David Quay visited an embodiment of that ethos.
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- On November 10th, 2023,
we were conducting routine training
when we received notification of a fallen angel.
Fallen angel is a notification
that there's been an aircraft mishap.
(tense music)
Upon arrival on scene,
we noticed there was a sea of red chem lights.
There was a single soldier waving their arms
holding the chem light.
After multiple attempts,
it became clear he wasn't gonna be able to hoist himself
outta the water.
The only way we could recover
was by sending someone in the water.
As the senior crew chief on board,
I decided it was my job to do that.
(helicopter whirring)
(tense music) (water burbling)
It was extremely dark.
There was a lot of debris in the water.
Once I got to Tanner,
I attempted to hook him into his rescue harness.
As clear as injuries just weren't gonna allow us
to make that happen.
I knew keeping his head outta the water was the priority.
So I sat him on my chest,
asked for the rescue boat with hand and arm signals,
and then waved the helicopter off to give us a break.
(tense music)
(water burbling)
We sat holding onto the rescue raft for about 45 minutes
until finally a rescue boat arrived.
The rescue boat began lifesaving operations
to work on Tanner
until we were airlifted out by another helicopter.
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We lost five crew members that day.
Steve, Shane, Cade, Andy, and Tanner.
There's a lot of things I carry with me from that night.
Some pride, some regrets.
After the incident,
I got to spend some time with Tanner's family
and I've got to build a relationship with them
and it's helped me with my healing process
- For his actions on November 10th,
Staff Sergeant David Quay received multiple awards
including the Soldier's Medal for Heroism.
What Sergeant Quay did that night was incredibly heroic
and every Night Stalker would do the same.
- By volunteering to come to the 160th,
there's a common understanding
that we would all do this for one another.
There's zero doubt that Tanner would've done
the same thing for me had the rules been reversed.
- After the incident, we were able to gather every night
to mourn and to heal together.
And without David's leadership,
I do not think this company would be
as successful as it is today.
- This is the tightest knit unit I've ever been a part of.
When tragedy arises, I've never seen so many people step up
and rise up to take care of one another.
As Night Stalkers, we live by two truths.
Night Stalkers don't quit and Night Stalkers don't forget.
The strength to never quit comes from remembering
those who came before us.
The countless times that Night Stalkers flew into harm's way
in order to save a teammate.
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- [Reporter] Up next, when the USS Mason interdicted a boat
hijacked by pirates, one man had to face the hostage takers
to gain control of the situation.
Armed with only a megaphone,
he found himself squared off with the pirates
with the fate of the operation and 22 hostages in his hands.
Here's his story.
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- I have been tasked to board with a team and go there
and be the way of communication
between Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure and the pirates.
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- There's a lot of unknowns going through your head
when you're doing a boarding.
You definitely are keeping a sharp eye out.
- All my team had guns except me.
My guns that time was as a megaphone.
(megaphone blaring)
All the time that my team was going on the boat,
I was directing the pirates just to pay attention to me.
(Ahmed speaks in foreign language)
If I kept all the pirates focusing with me,
that's a good way to keep my team safe.
(Ahmed speaks in foreign language)
So I was actually just giving commands to all the pirates
to keep eyes on me, always eyes on me
and even maintain your hands up
because when you your hands up, you cannot do anything.
- It was a controlled environment when he took charge.
As the translator, he stepped up and put everybody at ease.
- I was extremely thankful that we had BM1 El Haroun with us
during the boarding at Central Park.
His abilities to communicate with our detainees
did us a huge favor.
- So we started to expunge the pirates one by one.
- We basically took them back to Mason.
- They said, "Hey, we got people coming back."
I said, "I got a ladder rigged."
- During all that time, we were actually providing
daily medical evaluation for them.
We were providing religious services, meal.
- They were kept on board for probably about a month.
(waves whooshing)
- Might this moment actually was coming back from deployment
with all my team having the dress whites
and we see all our families waiting for us on the pier.
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- El Haroun, his role in regards to it was above and beyond.
They were able to carry out a full work list
along with flight quarters, along with evolutions,
and keep 22 other sailors safe.
- Try as much as possible not to drop the line of the water.
- He taught us a lot even as officers
and he was also the one
that was just taking in all information he could.
Using that to bring himself up
and then passed it on to the next generation.
(waves whooshing)
Kind of sad we don't have that anymore.
We don't get to see him on the bridge
passing his 1MC announcements
and doing his awesome driving that he usually does.
We'll definitely miss BM1 El Haroun.
(waves whooshing)
- Not about me, it's all about the teamwork.
Everybody's had a specific job in the ship
and when we do our job,
it end up that we actually always saving the ship.
Sounds good.
All right. - Sounds good, Chief.
I think my mission, it will never end
until I come back from deployment
making sure every sailor is coming back,
they're able to meet with their families.
(people cheering)
Everything we do, it means nothing
until we keep the ship safe and the sailors safe.
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- [Reporter] When we come back,
more stories of heroism from around the military
from the 2025 Service Members of the Year Awards.
Stay tuned.
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Welcome back, when a military helicopter tragically collided
with a passenger jet in the nation's capitol in January,
some of the first people to arrive on the scene
were members of Coast Guard Station Washington.
Given the task of looking for survivors,
they launched straight into the icy waters
of the Potomac River.
For their efforts, they were collectively awarded
the 2025 Coast Guardsman of the Year Award.
Here's their story.
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- As I'm entering the base,
I see a line of red or white lights
of emergency vehicles just everywhere.
- To me, it looked like hundreds
of responding assets immediately there
and that was coupled with
that overwhelming smell of jet fuel.
- You could feel it all around your eyes
just up in your nose just there.
- It just was a massive debris field,
chunks of debris floating everywhere.
- The radio, they say 60 souls.
We were looking for 60 souls and that just stuck to me.
(dramatic music)
(playing cards rasping)
(soldiers chattering)
(soldiers laughing)
(operator indistinctly speaks)
- I think everyone's plan at the time
was still trying to understand exactly what was happening.
We didn't have any other details
other than a plane had crashed.
- I can say that that day was probably the fastest day
I've seen people get ready.
(zipper rasping)
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- Once we came out of the marina and were on scene,
that's when we started just passing on the stuff
that we were seeing firsthand,
and we saw this large piece of metal floating there
and we came up on it to see
and turned out to be a helicopter.
And yeah, when you see that, it's just unbelievable.
(siren blaring) (waves whooshing)
- During the first stage of that night,
you know, the focus was just trying to get
as much information as you can.
The second stage was now realizing
this was going to take more than just a night.
(somber music)
- When we were searching
and we came across our first victim,
and again, just unbelievable.
Another shocking thing, you know,
that you don't expect to come across.
- I don't think you can mentally shift
from search and rescue to search and recovery.
Effectively, I think we're trained
to always be in search and rescue mode.
They don't go out there searching for a victim.
They go out there searching for a person.
- The mission evolved into becoming the mission
to reunite all 67 families and friends with their loved
to bring them the much needed closure that night.
- We were able to recover all 67 victims.
Three of which were US Army service members.
(somber music)
(tense music)
You have to have some sort of order to the chaos.
I commend Lieutenant Commander Jenish
for maintaining that order
through everything that was going on
with composure and skill.
- Lieutenant Dravitz was there to fill in the gaps
of what everyone needed that night.
Craig was definitely everywhere.
In days following, our focus as a unit was to heal
and to recognize that resources are available
and that we really emphasize the importance
to, you know, seek professional mental health
to talk it out.
As far as what's next for Station Washington,
we truly have become a stronger station.
- Station Washington is gonna continue to train.
Gonna continue to train, maintain, and operate.
- We have great people here that love to do their job.
- At the end of the day, we were just doing our job
and I think we're gonna continue to do it without a doubt,
especially with the brothers and sisters we have here,
the men and women that we serve alongside with.
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- [Reporter] When hundreds of drones were launched
at Israel by Iran in 2024,
members of the Air Force stood by to aid in the defense.
Among them was Captain Carla Nava, a weapon system officer,
in a historic all female crew on a combat mission
who helped take down five of the drones
before they reach their targets.
Hear about the experience in her own words.
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- So my call sign, I wish I could tell you the story.
You have to technically buy a fighter pilot
or fighter WSO a drink.
But I can say it seems for girl, you're nuts.
Fighter pilot culture is more of an attitude,
being a pit bull on a leash.
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October 2023, I had just become a two ship WSO
or weapons systems officer,
which means I could lead a two ship formation.
And my squadron, the 492nd was deployed to the Middle East.
There was conflict between Israel and Iran.
The tensions were really high.
And on April 13th, 2024, everyone was starting to catch wind
that something big was gonna happen.
(wind whooshing) (dramatic music)
Atomic and I, we had the opportunity to be number two
of a two ship of alert lines
in response to this possible drone onslaught
that we're expecting.
I was excited to actually get action
'cause I haven't had that opportunity up until that point,
but also nervous that I knew that if we failed,
it would be catastrophic for civilians.
(ship whirring)
After about five to like 10 minutes,
we started to see on our sensors
like some possible drones popping up.
And I remember thinking, "This is actually happening.
This is gonna be a life changing event for us."
And we captured it on the radar.
I queued up the targeting pod.
As a WSO, I'm the final authority to drop the weapon
and the words left my mouth cleared to shoot.
An Atomic pressed on the button
and held it for an uncomfortable amount of time,
and that's a flash of light from the left side of our jet.
Just like out of the corner of my eye, I see it.
Two to five seconds later, I see an explosion on my screen.
In the heat of the moment, I assessed that Atomic
and I only shot down three drones.
And it wasn't until we get to the debrief
that we put in our tapes,
which essentially records everything that we shot,
and we realized that we actually shot down five drones.
Five is a magic number in the aviation community.
Since the beginning of flying in World War I,
ACE has been known as having five aerial victories,
and this hasn't happened in a couple decades.
To be part of the first fighter squadron
to have done it in that decade was amazing.
So it was a shared victory for all of us.
- It was a selfless moment
of being willing to get into an aircraft
and face overwhelming odds and then come out on top.
(people clapping)
- After that deployment,
it was time for me to move on to my next assignment,
which was gonna be NAS Pensacola.
My role as an instructor, 455th formation flight commander.
- What we have here is the only pipeline forces
in the entire Air Force.
So failure here is potentially failure for the Air Force.
- I have a bubbly personality and I am very friendly,
but I take training very seriously.
So I will lay it to them straight
whether they are meeting the standard or not.
I know I come from a different demographic,
a different background, a different gender entirely
than probably 80% of the Air Force now.
Thank goodness I've always been seen as an equal
and I really wanna make sure young women
that are seeking an career in aviation
know that it's definitely an opportunity.
- Part of our training process is to make sure
that we hand over the experiences that we gain
and certainly Captain Guns Nava
is gonna be able to take those experiences
and start feeding that into some of the lieutenants
that are going through our program today.
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- [Reporter] When we come back,
our financial expert returns
with a primer on how to earn money with compound interest.
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- [Reporter] Welcome back.
Compound interest can sound complicated,
but the results can be simple, dramatic gains.
On this week's edition of Money Minute,
Jeanette Mack from Navy Federal Credit Union
talks you through how it works.
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- Wanna grow your money without working harder for it?
Then you should be taking advantage
of a little something called compounding interest.
Actually, it's a big something that has the power
to help you build wealth over time.
It works by earning interest on the money you save
and earning interest on top of that,
then more on top of that. and so on year after year.
The earlier you start, the bigger the results.
So let's say you start saving at age 40.
You put away $3,000 a year in an account earning 3%.
By age 65, you'll have over $112,000.
That's solid growth.
But if you had started at 25,
you'd end up with more than 232,000.
Nearly double.
So you see time really is money
and it's your best advantage toward retirement.
Start by saving even small amounts in an account or a CD
then watch it grow into something big
by making compounding interest work for you.
So what are you waiting for?
Start saving now
and let the superpower of compounding interest
be your financial goals biggest hero.
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- [Reporter] To get more coverage
of military and defense topics,
aim that intellectual sniper rifle toward militarytimes.com
and defensenews.com for more headlines.
And to be the most informed coasty in the rescue boat,
sign up for our Early Bird Brief.
Compiled each morning bringing you
the most recent headlines.
And if social media is how you stay up to date,
follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and X,
and we're on TikTok, so go follow us there as well.
When we come back, our final look at recipients
of the 2025 Service Members of the Year Awards.
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Welcome back to "Defense News Weekly".
To wrap up the show this week,
we have the story of a guardian who took an unusual path
by enrolling in the Army Drill Sergeant Academy.
Hear about the lessons he learned there
and how he turned into a mental health advocate.
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- You can't teach resiliency in a book.
It's something you have to experience.
You have to build that callous over and over again
and callousing that mind.
Learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable,
that's the only way to be an effective leader.
My career all started back in 2018 in the Air Force
until 2020 when after winning the Space Force.
The Space Force offered me a brand new service,
brand new culture.
All those mission sets were an opportunity for me
to be a part of what I thought to be the next leading edge
of military operations.
(Yuji indistinctly speaks)
One of my goals from the beginning of my career,
ever since basic military training,
I saw those military training instructors,
I wanted to be a part of that
and I was actually asked,
"Hey, what do you think about going down
to the Army Drill Sergeant Academy
to figure out how they do things there
and see what you want to bring to the Space Force?"
- What we were looking for was some new ideas
on how we want Space Force MTIs to operate,
and Sergeant Moore was the best person to send through.
Some people just have that inherent desire
to just be the best no matter what.
- [Sergeant Moore] At the academy,
I was also joined by Technical Sergeant Gudgeon.
He ended up becoming my brother throughout that training.
- Myself and Sergeant Moore
being introduced to that environment,
we both leaned on each other quite a bit.
- Their goal was to treat us like the trainees
so we could understand what that was like.
And they were firm, they were direct.
But the phrase of saying, "Hey, we're tearing someone down
or break 'em down to build 'em back up again"
This isn't necessarily true.
It's not like the Vietnam era draft.
You know, everyone that wants to be in the military,
they raised their right hand and they joined.
So it's a completely different force
and their training reflects that.
Sergeant Gudgeon and I were not only the first guardians
to graduate from the Drill Sergeant Academy,
but the first joint service members outside of the Army
to graduate that academy.
- Not only did he excel, which we knew that he would,
it was a better outcome
than we could have possibly hoped for.
But what I also noticed is that sometimes Sergeant Moore
will give too much of himself
in the pursuit of taking care of other people
or taking care of the mission.
And finally, he made the courageous decision
to step up and ask for help.
- I did struggle with a mental health crisis.
I was practicing perfectionism in a bad way.
The pressure of excellence kind of got worse and worse.
And Major Mathews ensured that I knew
that my mission was to take care of myself.
- So he took that knee
and he went through all the treatment that he needed.
And since Sergeant Moore has been through the struggle
and he's come out the other side hole,
I've seen him be a much more effective leader in NCO.
- [Sergeant Moore] Let it suck now. Let there be pain now.
- Yes, sir. - And when we had a need
for a _ instructor
to lead our curriculum development,
we saw Sergeant Moore and we said, "That's the guy."
(people clapping)
His knowledge and his understanding
of the way the Army does things
at their Drill Sergeant Academy
is one of the pillars that we're leaning on.
That way we're moving forward with the Space Force
is a holistic health approach.
We don't want robots that are follow a script.
We want critical thinkers that are able to do
what they do best with their skillset.
With everything being so new and unprecedented,
every guardian has a chance to leave
kind of their fingerprint on this baseboard.
- [Team] 10, 11, 12.
- Sergeant Moore's drive for excellence
is still a mystery to me.
I was looking to bottle it up and sell it to an extent.
He's just one of those members who's gonna do great things
for as long as he chooses to wear the uniform.
- He's gonna be a senior leader one day,
and then everybody who crosses his path
will be changed positively by having interacted with him.
There are generations of guardians who will go out
and have the imprint that Sergeant Moore left on them.
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- [Reporter] Well, that's all we have time for
in this episode.
Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next week.
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