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Stockdale grad awarded Silver Star for shooting suicide bomber

The Bakersfield Californian | Monday, Jul 14 2008 2:02 PM

Last Updated: Tuesday, Jul 15 2008 10:34 AM

While carrying an Afghan man away from a car on fire, U.S. Army Sgt. Michael Alexander Espejo Jr. noticed something bulky under the man’s shirt and a wire running out of his sleeve.

Realizing it was a bomb, Espejo shoved the man away and told everyone to take cover.

Espejo, a Stockdale High School graduate, is receiving the Silver Star at Fort Lewis in Washington for killing a suicide bomber disguised as an Afghan National policeman on Sept. 27, 2007 in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.

“We train night and day for all these types of situations, and luckily, we trained on this one a lot, not thinking it would come up,” Espejo said.

Espejo, who is in the 66th Military Police Company, stopped at a bombing on the side of the road on the way back to base. He noticed a man lying about 5 feet away from the car and thinking he was a victim of the bomb, Espejo started to move him.

When he realized the man was a suicide bomber, Espejo took cover behind concrete pillars.

At first, the man listened when Espejo gave orders to raise his hands in Pashtu and English. Another sergeant was making his way to the concrete pillars when the suicide bomber tried to activate the device. Espejo shot the Afghan man. He said the whole incident took a few seconds.

“I was just thinking I have to try to get away from this situation as fast as possible,” he said.

His father, Michael Espejo Sr., said it was overwhelming as a father to find out his son was receiving the Silver Star. While his son told him about the incident in Afghanistan, he didn’t initially realize the seriousness of the situation.

“As parents we know they are in harm's way, but we don’t want to accept it,” he said.

He said his son wanted to be in the military since he was a young teenager.

“We always knew by his demeanor and conduct that he is a man of integrity,” he said.

Espejo Jr.’s military career started in 2001 with the U.S. Marine Corps, and then he enlisted in the Army as a military policeman in 2005. He has done two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and re-enlisted for the next six years.

He plans to make a career out of the Army, and his next assignment is in Missouri as a drill sergeant training new recruits. He lives with his wife, Rosa, in Tacoma, Washington, and he has one son, Michael Espejo III, and another baby on the way.

The Silver Star is awarded to U.S. Army members for “gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States while engaged in military operations,” according to the program passed out at Espejo’s ceremony at 4 p.m. Monday. The military action must be a conflict against an opposing foreign force.

“I’m pretty honored and pretty psyched,” Espejo Jr. said. “I wasn’t expecting this at all.”