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Falls City Native Receives Cheney Award From U.S. Air Force

By John Nixon

11/19/2012

(KLZA) On November 1st, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff General Larry Spencer presented Falls City High School graduate, Master Sergeant Josehp Brownell, field operation section chief and Captain Kenneth Green, the UH-1N Twin Huey pilot with the 2011 Cheney Award.
    The two Airmen were honored at the Pentagon for saving the lives of a civilian and his son, August 20th, 2011, after they suffered acute mountain sickness while climbing the 9,000 foot peak of Mount Stuart, part of the Cascade Mountains in Washington state.
    Green executed a 200-foot hover and hoisted Brownell down to access the climbers. Brownell stabilized both people and extracted them by hoist. Near maximum weight, the aircraft began to descend so Green maneuvered the aircraft to lower terrain.
    The Cheney Award honors an Air Force member for an act of valor, extreme fortitude or self-sacrifice in a humanitarian interest, performed in connection with aircraft, but not necessarily of a military nature. It is presented in memory of 1st Lt. William Cheney, who was killed in an air collision over Italy in 1918.
    General Spencer said quote, “there are heroic things going on in our Air Force every day, and these two gentlemen epitomize that.”

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