Unsung Heroes: The Army Ranger Who Beat Down A Suicide Bomber With His Fists

When Spc. Joe Gibson found himself face to face with an al Qaeda suicide bomber in Iraq, he didn’t back down.



On the night of April 26, 2008, UH-60 Black Hawks delivered U.S. Army Rangers to a grassy field in rural Iraq. As the soldiers took up their positions beneath the ascending helicopters, a heavy barrage of small-arms fire began whipping in through the tall grass. The men of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment had arrived on a mission to find and eliminate an al Qaeda cell. Now they were being ambushed by a group of insurgents less than 50 meters away.

Two of the Rangers went down almost immediately, one with a life-threatening gunshot wound.




“The guy that got hit was a real good friend of mine, and he called out to me,” Spc. Joe Gibson later told the U.S. Army Special Operations Command in a report published by the military blog Blackfive. “Me and another guy moved to him. I had the medical equipment, so I started getting that prepped while other people started taking care of him. We got him ready for [evacuation], patched him up, and started moving him out.”

With the casualty evacuated, Gibson returned to his squad and the Rangers continued their mission. The gunfire had died down.