Honoring the 2025 Service Members of the Year | Defense News Weekly Full Episode 9.13.25

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On this edition of Defense News Weekly, a special episode featuring some of the bravest men and women in the military

We hear stories of danger, heroism, quick thinking, and self-sacrifice as we tick through the military branches

to highlight some of the most heroic acts by men and women in uniform from the past year

Set against the backdrop of the 2025 Service Members of the Year gala

it's our annual chance to feature stories of incredible gallantry from around the armed forces

Join us to take a break from the latest in news and ysis to celebrate heroic service members on this edition of Defense News Weekly

Welcome back to Defense News Weekly

Each year, Military Times gets the chance to recognize some of the most auspicious acts of service around the military with the annual Service Members of the Year gala

Today, we bring you stories of some of the 2025 recipients, featuring examples of incredible fortitude in the face of danger

Up first, we learn about a soldier from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment

known as the Night Stalkers and his efforts to save a brother in arms

Have a look. In the Army, we have an ethos, and the ethos is I will always place the mission first

I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade

Sergeant David Quay, this is an embodiment of that ethos. On November 10th, 2023, we were conducting routine training when we received notification

of a fallen angel. Fallen angel is the notification that there's been an aircraft mishap

Upon arrival on scene, we noticed there was a sea of red chemlights

There was a single soldier waving their arms, holding the chemlight. After multiple attempts, it became clear he wasn't going to be able to hoist himself out of the water

The only way we could recover was by sending someone in the water. As the senior crew chief on board, I decided it was my job to do that

It was extremely dark. There was a lot of debris in the water. Once I got to Tanner, I attempted to hook him into his rescue harness

It was clear as injuries just weren't going to allow us to make that happen. I knew keeping his head out of the water was the priority, so I sat him on my chest

asked for the rescue boat with hand and arm signals, and then waved the helicopter off to give us a break

We sat holding onto the rescue raft for about 45 minutes until finally a rescue boat arrived

The rescue boat began life-saving operations to work on Tanner until we were airlifted out by another helicopter

We lost five crew members that day. Steve, Shane, Cade, Andy, and Tanner

There's a lot of things I carry with me from that night. Some pride, some regrets

After the incident, I got to spend some time with Tanner's family, and I got to build a relationship with them

and it's helped me with my healing process. For his actions on November 10th

Staff Sergeant David Quay received multiple awards, including the Soldier's Medal for Heroism

What Sergeant Quaid did that night was incredibly heroic, and every night stalker would do the same

By volunteering to come to the 160th, there's a common understanding that we would all do this for one another

There's zero doubt that Tanner would have done the same thing for me had the roles been reversed

After the incident, we were able to gather every night to mourn and to heal together

and without David's leadership, I do not think this company would be as successful as it is today

This is the tightest knit unit I've ever been a part of

When tragedy arises, I've never seen so many people step up and rise up to take care of

one another. As Nightstalkers, we live by two truths. Nightstalkers don't quit, and Nightstalkers don't forget

The strength to never quit comes from remembering those who came before us

The countless times that Nightstalkers flew into harm's way in order to save a teammate

Up next, when the USS Mason interdicted a boat hijacked by pirates

one man had to face the hostage takers to gain control of the situation

Armed with only a megaphone, he found himself squared off with the pirates with the fate of the operation and 22 hostages in his hands

Here's his story. I have been tasked to board with the team and go there

and be the way of communication between visit board station Caesar team and the pirates

There a lot of unknowns going through your head when you doing a boarding You definitely are keeping a sharp eye out All my team had guns except me My gun at the time was as a megaphone

All the time that my team was going on the boat, I was directing the pirates just to pay attention to me

If it kept all the pirates focusing with me, that's a good way to keep my team safe

So I was actually just giving commands to all the pirates to keep eyes on me, always eyes on me, and even maintain your hands up, because when you're hands up, you cannot do anything

It was a controlled environment when he took charge. As the translator, he stepped up and put everybody at ease

I was extremely thankful that we had Yamoan Elvaro with us during the boarding of Central Park. His abilities to communicate with our detainees did us a huge favor

So we started transferring the pirates one by one. We basically took them back to Mason

They said, hey, we got people coming back. I said, I got a ladder rigged. During all that time, we were actually providing daily medical evaluation for them

We were providing religious services, me. They were kept on board for probably about a month

My first moment actually was coming back from deployment with all my team having the dress

and we see all our families waking for us on the pier

El Jaron, his role in regards to it was above and beyond

They were able to carry out a full work list along with flight quarters

along with evolutions, and keep 22 other sailors safe. Try as much as possible not to drop the line in the water

He taught us a lot, even as officers, and he was also the one that was just taking in all the information he could

using that to bring himself up and then pass it on to the next generation

Kind of sad, we don't have that anymore. We don't get to see him on the bridge passing his 1MC announcements

and doing his awesome driving that he usually does. We'll definitely miss BM1 Elveron

Not about me, it's all about the teamwork. Everybody has had a specific job in the ship

And when we do our job, it ends up that we actually always saving the ship

I think my mission, it will never end until I come back from deployment

making sure every sailor is coming back, they're able to meet with their families

Everything we do, it means nothing until we keep the ship safe and the sailor safe

When we come back, more stories of heroism from around the military

from the 2025 Service Members of the Year Awards. Stay tuned. Welcome back

When a military helicopter tragically collided with a passenger jet in the nation's capital in January

some of the first people to arrive on the scene were members of Coast Guard Station Washington

Given the task of looking for survivors, they launched straight into the icy waters of the Potomac River

For their efforts, they were collectively awarded the 2025 Coast Guardsman of the Year Award

Here's their story. As I'm entering the base, I see a line of red and white lights of emergency vehicles just everywhere

To me, it looked like hundreds of responding assets immediately there. And that was coupled with that overwhelming smell of jet fuel

You could feel it all around your eyes, just up in your nose, just there

It just was a massive debris field, chunks of debris floating everywhere

The radio, they say 60 souls. We were looking for 60 souls

And that just stuck to me. I think everyone's mine at the time was still trying to understand exactly what was happening

We didn't have any other details other than a plane had crashed

I can say that that day was probably the fastest day I've seen people get ready

Once we came out of the marina and were on scene, that's when we started just passing on the stuff that we were seeing firsthand

And we saw this large piece of metal floating there, and we came up on it to see and turned out to be a helicopter

And yeah, when you see that, it's just unbelievable. During the first stage of that night, the focus was just trying to get as much information

as you can. The second stage was now realizing this was going to take more than just a night

When we were searching and we came across our first victim, again, just unbelievable

another shocking thing. that you don't expect to come across. I don't think you can mentally shift

from search and rescue to search and recovery effectively. I think we're trained to always be in search and rescue mode

They don't go out there searching for a victim. They go out there searching for a person

The mission evolved into becoming the mission to reunite all 67 families and friends with their loved ones to bring them the much closure that night

We were able to recover all 67 victims, three of which were U.S. Army service members

You have to have some sort of order to the chaos

I commend Lieutenant Commander Jenish for maintaining that order through everything that was going on with composure and skill

Lieutenant Rabbits was there to fill in the gaps of what everyone needed that night

Craig was definitely everywhere. In days following, our focus as a unit was to heal

and to recognize that resources are available and that we really emphasize the importance

to seek professional mental health, to talk it out. As far as what's next for Station Washington

we truly have become a stronger station. Station Washington is going to continue to train

going to continue to train, maintain, and operate. We have great people here that love to do their job

At the end of the day, we were just doing our job, and I think we're going to continue to do it without a doubt

especially with the brothers and sisters we have here, the men and women that we serve alongside with

When hundreds of drones were launched at Israel by Iran in 2024

members of the Air Force stood by to aid in the defense. Among them was Captain Carla Nava

a weapons system officer and a historic all-female crew on a combat mission

who helped take down five of the drones before they reached their targets. Hear about the experience in her own words

So my call sign, I wish I could tell you the story. You have to technically buy a fighter pilot or fighter was a drink

But I can say it stands for girl, you're nuts. Fighter pilot culture is more of an attitude

being a pit bull on a leash. October 2023, I had just become a two-ship WIZO

or Weapons Systems Officer, which means I could lead a two-ship formation

and my squadron, the 492nd, was deployed to the Middle East. There was conflict between Israel and Iran

The tensions were really high. And on April 13th of 2024, Everyone was starting to catch wind that something big was going to happen

Atomic and I, we had the opportunity to be number two of a two-ship of alert lines

in response to this possible drone onslaught that we're expecting. I was excited to actually get action because I haven't had that opportunity up until that point

but also nervous that I knew that if we failed, it would be catastrophic for civilians

After about five to like 10 minutes, we started to see on our sensors like some possible drones

popping up. And I remember thinking, this is actually happening. This is going to be a life-changing event for us

We captured it on the radar. I queued up the targeting pod. As a wizzo, I'm the final authority to drop the weapon

And the words left my mouth clear to shoot. and Atomic pressed on the button

and held it for an uncomfortable amount of time and that's in a flash of light from the left side of our jet

just like out of the corner of my eye, I see it. Two to five seconds later, I see an explosion on my screen

In the heat of the moment, I assessed that Atomic and I only shot down three drones

It wasn't until we get to the debrief that we put in our tapes

which essentially records everything that we shot And we realized that we actually shot down five drones

Five is a magic number in the aviation community. Since the beginning of flying in World War I

ACE has been known as having five aerial victories. And this hasn't happened in a couple decades

To be part of the first fighter squadron to have done it in that decade was amazing

So it was a shared victory for all of us. It was a selfless moment of being willing

to get into an aircraft and face overwhelming odds and then come out on top

After that deployment, it was time for me to move on to my next assignment, which was going to be NAS Pensacola

My role is an instructor, 455th Formation Flight Commander. What we have here is the only pipeline for scissors in the entire Air Force

So failure here is potentially failure for the Air Force. I have a bubbly personality, and I'm very friendly, but I take training very seriously

So I will lay it to them straight, whether they are meeting the standard or not

I know I come from a different demographic, a different background, a different gender entirely than probably 80% of the Air Force now

Thank goodness. I've always been seen as an equal. And I really want to make sure young women that are seeking a career in aviation know that it's definitely an opportunity

Part of our training process is to make sure that we hand over the experiences that we gain

And certainly Captain Guns Nava is going to be able to take those experiences and start feeding that into some of the lieutenants that are going through our program today

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be your financial goal's biggest hero. To get more coverage of military and defense topics

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And we're on TikTok, so go follow us there as well. When we come back, our final look at recipients of the 2025 Service Members of the Year Awards

Welcome back to Defense News Weekly. To wrap up the show this week, we have the story of a guardian who took an unusual path

by enrolling in the Army Drill Sergeant Academy. Hear about the lessons he learned there and how he turned into a mental health advocate

You can't teach resiliency in a book. It's something you have to experience

You have to build that callus over and over again and callusing that mind. Learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable

That's the only way to be an effective leader. My career all started back in 2018 in the Air Force until 2020 when I joined the Space Force

The Space Force offered me a brand new service, a brand new culture. All those mission sets were an opportunity for me to be a part of what I thought to be the next leading edge of military operations

One of my goals from the beginning of my career, ever since basic military training, I saw those military training instructors

I wanted to be a part of that. and I was actually asked, hey, what do you think about going down to the Army Drill Sergeant Academy

to figure out how they do things there and see what you want to bring to the Space Force

What we were looking for was some new ideas on how we want Space Force MTIs to operate

and Sergeant Moore was the best person to send through. Some people just have that inherent desire to just be the best no matter what

At the Academy, I was also joined by Technical Sergeant Gudgeon. and he ended up becoming my brother throughout that training

Myself and Sergeant Moore, being introduced to that environment, we both leaned on each other quite a bit

Their goal was to treat us like the trainees so we could understand what that was like, and they were firm, they were direct

but the phrase of saying, hey, we're tearing someone down or break them down to build them back up again isn't necessarily true

It's not like the Vietnam era draft, you know. Everyone that wants to be in the military

they raised their right hand and they joined. So it's a completely different force, and their training reflects that

Sergeant Gudgeon and I were not only the first guardians to graduate from the drill sergeant academy

but the first joint service members outside of the Army to graduate that academy

Not only did he excel, which we knew that he would, it was a better outcome than we could have possibly hoped for

But what I also noticed is that sometimes Sergeant Moore will give too much of himself

in the pursuit of taking care of other people or taking care of the mission. And finally, he made the courageous decision to step up and ask for help

I did struggle with a mental health crisis. I was practicing perfectionism in a bad way

The pressure of excellence kind of got worse and worse. And Major Matthews ensured that I knew that my mission was to take care of myself

So he took that knee and he went through all the treatment that he needed. And since Sergeant Moore has been through the struggle and he's come out the other side whole

I've seen him be a much more effective leader in NCO. Let it suck now. Let there be pain now

Yes, sir. And when we had a need for a T-billet instructor

to lead our curriculum and development, we saw Sergeant Moore, and we said, that's the guy

His knowledge and his understanding of the way the Army does things

at Therese World Sergeant Academy is one of the pillars that we're leaning on

The way we're moving forward as a Space Force is a holistic health approach. We don't want robots that are following a script

We want critical thinkers that are able to do what they do best with their skill sets

With everything being so new and unprecedented, every Guardian has a chance to leave kind of their fingerprint on the Space Force

Sardin Moore's drive for excellence is still a mystery to me. I was looking to bottle it up and sell it to an extent

He's just one of those members who's going to do great things for as long as he chooses to wear the uniform

he's going to be a senior leader one day and then everybody who crosses his path

will be changed positively by having interacted with him there are generations of guardians

who will go out and have the imprint that Sergeant Moore left on them

well that's all we have time for in this episode thanks for joining us

and we'll see you next week