Staff Sergeant Travis Griffin: Patrol Leader 

Selected to head a Police Transition Team, Staff Sergeant Travis Griffin was considered to be the perfect tactical leader. His mission: negotiate the worst streets of Baghdad and restore law and order while training, mentoring, and coaching Iraqi police.

Every day, he led 14 heavily-armed Airmen into the insurgent-infested stronghold. Sergeant Griffin, who was on his fifth combat deployment, had two goals: to train Iraqi police forces, and ensure his Airmen returned home safely. He insisted that both goals were best served by commanding from the front. Through the first six months, Sergeant Griffin had been exposed to multiple improvised explosive device (IED) strikes and indirect fire attacks. In February 2008, Sergeant Griffin’s squad was hit by an IED strike, seriously injuring a soldier. Despite the chaos, Sergeant Griffin led his convoy back through the kill zone, ensured site security, and administered life-saving treatment to wounded comrades, all the while under small arms fire and threat of secondary IEDs.

On April 3, 2008, while leading his squad on a combat operations patrol on one of the most dangerous routes in Baghdad, Sergeant Griffin’s vehicle was struck by an explosively formed penetrator--the deadliest IED found in Iraq. Within seconds of the attack, and with Sergeant Griffin gravely wounded, his squad reacted exactly as he trained them, providing site security, clearing buildings, and detaining possible insurgents. Despite relentless efforts by an Army medic, Sergeant Griffin’s injuries proved fatal.

Sergeant Griffin would have refused to trade places with anyone that day. His security forces Airmen knew him as a warrior’s warrior, dedicated to a higher calling of service Before self.