The Texas VLB Looks Towards Patriot Day Remembrance
The Veterans Land Board shares in the excitement of the military community as a new Medal of Honor is awarded at the White House. It is fitting to have the ceremony on the anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Sgt. Maj. Thomas “Patrick” Payne will be honored for his actions in a hostage rescue in 2015 in Iraq. 70 Iraqis walked away from an ISIS prison that day because of the heroic actions of Payne and his team.
Thomas Payne joined the Army right out of high school, in spring 2002, after having experienced the horror of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He, like so many of the 9/11 generation, volunteered to serve his country. He was recruited to the Army Rangers in 2003 and served as a sniper and sniper team leader until 2007, when he was selected for service at the United States Army Special Operations Command, or USASOC, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In 2012, Payne and a Ranger buddy, MSGT Kevin Foutz, won the “Best Ranger” competition at Fort Benning, Georgia, making them officially the toughest Rangers in the United States Army. The competition, hosted since 1982, is a two-man event that lasts 60 hours, requires movement over 50 miles, and completion of the Darby Queen, the “mother of all obstacle courses”. Payne, obviously, is a soldier’s soldier. He is tough, smart and dedicated.
Those qualities served him well in his 17 deployments, one of which was to Iraq’s northern border in 2015 in Operation Inherent Resolve. In this mission, Payne’s group was tasked with the recovery of 70 Iraqi citizens held by ISIS in the town of Hawija. Payne exposed himself to enemy gunfire multiple times to cut two different locks off of doors to the prison and then managed to fit every one of the hostages and every one of his men in the helicopters sent to provide their extraction. He and his men had to stand the entire trip back to safety, but everyone made it home. Their mission was an overwhelming success, and the Rangers, the Army and the United States give a lot of the credit for the positive outcome to Sgt. Maj. Payne.
On Friday, September 11, 2020, he will receive a Medal of Honor placed around his neck for his heroism, which according to other MOH recipients, is both an honor and a burden. Ron Shurer, a Special Forces medic who received the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Shok Valley in Afghanistan in 2008, also joined the Army because of 9/11. He once said, “Everybody is going to struggle on how to absorb the weight of the medal when you put it on. I don’t think anybody has received it and not been like, ‘Why me?’” Shurer passed away in May 2020 of cancer at age 41.
Payne, like most Medal of Honor recipients, credits his team with the heroism. “The Medal of Honor represents everything great about our country, and for me, I don’t consider myself a ‘recipient’. I consider myself a guardian of this medal. What’s important for me is that my teammates’ legacies will live on with this Medal of Honor.”
Today, the military community gains a 69th living recipient of the Medal of Honor. The Texas Veterans Land Board salutes all those military members, both current and former, who have served this great country. On this anniversary of a great tragedy, we honor those who serve.
