Ronald J. Shurer II, a retired Army staff sergeant who received the Medal of Honor in 2018 for braving heavy enemy gunfire in Afghanistan to save several members of his unit, died Thursday after a three-year battle with lung cancer, according to his wife. He was 41.
Miranda Shurer confirmed her husband died at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C.
“He was an amazing man. Obviously, he is known for being an amazing soldier,” she said, according to CBS News. “The same characteristics that made him a great teammate in Special Forces also made him a great husband and a great father and a great friend. He was very loved.”
Shurer, an Alaska native, enlisted a year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America.
He was serving with the Green Berets special forces unit as a senior medical sergeant on April 6, 2008, when militants ambushed Shurer’s team as they exited their helicopter on the slopes of the Shok Valley in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan.
In an interview with CBS in 2018, Shurer recalled that it "felt like we're being shot at from every direction."
On a steep mountainside, he was able to treat and stabilize five critically wounded soldiers amid machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades.
Reports say Shurer evacuated the wounded on an awaiting medical helicopter then charged back up the mountain to fight. Reports from the battlefield said Shurer used his own body to shield his fellow soldiers from enemy fire.
“We got everybody. We got everybody out,” Shurer said in 2018.
Shurer was promoted to staff sergeant in late 2006 and served with the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan from late November 2007 to late May 2008, according to CBS.
After an honorable discharge from the Army in 2009, Shurer joined the U.S. Secret Service and was stationed as an agent in Phoenix, Arizona.
He was later selected for the agency’s counter assault team and assigned to the Special Operations Division in June 2014.
For his heroism in Afghanistan, Shurer was initially presented with the Silver Star, but the U.S. Army later upgraded the award to the nation’s highest military honor, which was presented by President Donald Trump at a formal White House ceremony on Oct. 1, 2018.
Shurer was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, on December 7, 1978. He went to high school in Washington state and earned a Bachelor’s degree from Washington State University.
He is survived by his wife, two sons, and numerous other family.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
“Today, we lost an American Hero: Husband, Father, Son, Medal of Honor Recipient — Special Agent Ronald J. Shurer II. From a grateful Nation and Agency — your memory and legacy will live on forever,” the U.S. Secret Service said in a tweet.
Along with tributes on social media, The New York Stock Exchange honored Shurer Friday by featuring his portrait on the backdrop of the opening bell podium that overlooks the trading room floor.
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