Helo heroics
KHANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan - While deployed for months here throughout last year, rescue warriors Lt. Col. Paul Nevius (right), HH-60G Pave Hawk pilot, Staff Sgt. James Benson (left), flight engineer on the same, and the rest of their crew, assigned to Patrick Air Force Base, Fla and Davis Monthan AFB, Ariz., flew aeromedical evacuation missions to save the injured. For one such mission, where things went awry, they were awarded the Thomas E. Marchbanks award for valor. While providing medical evacuation of injured soldiers from an active battlefield they were drawn into the fight and as a result eliminated eight Taliban fighters crippling enemy resistance. Col. Nevius and his co-pilot, Capt. Brough McDonald, accepted the honor at the July Orlando Reserve Officers Association Convention in Orlando. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Keith Brown)