Fort Carson – Jeanette Reilly has to pry information from her son, Lt. Col. Gregory Reilly.
He’s always been a quiet man, reluctant to brag about his accomplishments. In February, during a phone call with her son, she prodded: “Have you won any medals lately?”
Reilly said he had earned a Bronze Star with valor, one of the Army’s highest awards. It was his fourth Bronze Star and his second with valor.
Reilly, who commanded the 1st Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, handed over command to Lt. Col. Thomas Dorame in a sun-splashed ceremony Tuesday at Fort Carson. Reilly is off to the Naval War College to study strategic and politic aspects of warfare.
Reilly’s latest Bronze Star, his mother learned in February, came for heroics on Aug. 31 in Tall Afar, Iraq.
“That was a particularly bad day,” Reilly said of his squadron’s second or third day in Tall Afar.
His soldiers had partnered with Iraqi soldiers and were engaged in a firefight with insurgents. Two young, inexperienced Iraqi soldiers decided to climb the ladder of a water tower and positioned themselves on a maintenance platform so they could get a better vantage point.
They were shot and killed by snipers.
Reilly ordered chemical smoke to obscure the water tower to provide cover to evacuate the bodies. But the other Iraqi soldiers were reluctant to retrieve them.
“In order to at least motivate them to do that, I went up the tower halfway to assist, to get them going,” Reilly said.
It worked.
“Their pride kicked in when they saw Col. Reilly’s Bradley (Fighting Vehicle) pull up in there into the front with all the smoke,” Capt. Craig Olson said. “It was Col. Reilly saying to the Iraqi Army commander: Here’s how you do it. … It was a pride and respect kind of thing. It taught the Iraqis a lot.”
Reilly said the move helped build credibility between the Americans and Iraqis.
“They knew we’d risk our lives for their lives,” he said.
Reilly won a Bronze Star during Desert Storm in the early 1990s; a Bronze Star with valor for service during the regiment’s first deployment to Iraq in 2003-04; and a second Bronze Star for service during the regiment’s latest tour, which ended in the spring.
When Jeanette Reilly heard of her son’s latest Bronze Star with valor – two months after it was awarded – she told him: “Climbing up a water tower? … Don’t do that. And he says, ‘I have to.”‘
Staff writer Erin Emery can be reached at 719-522-1360 or eemery@denverpost.com.
