President Donald Trump on Friday signed a bill passed by Congress to give him the authority to posthumously award Sgt. First Class Alwyn Cashe the Medal of Honor.
On Oct. 17, 2005, Cashe was on patrol in Diyala Province, Iraq when an improvised explosive device detonated under his Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Drenched in Fuel, Cashe ran to and from the Bradley repeatedly to rescue his fellow soldiers, pulling them to safety -- even though he was on fire. He died from his burns at Brooks Army Medical Center in Texas on Nov. 8, 2005, three weeks after he rescued his soldiers.
When he first regained consciousness, his sister, Kasinal Cashe White said Cashe's first words were, "How are my boys?" and when he learned that not all survived, he cried and told her, "I couldn't get to them fast enough."
House and Senate lawmakers previously advanced the bill that would allow the president to posthumously award Cashe the Medal of Honor for the rescue that led to his death. Cashe was originally awarded the Silver Star for his actions in Iraq, but Congress had to first waive current policy requiring Medals of Honor to be awarded within five years for that award to be upgraded. Congress has waived that five-year limit in the past and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he supported the move to upgrade Cashe's award.
With his signature on the bill, the president has indicated his support to award the Medal of Honor to Cashe, which would make him the first Black service member to receive the award for actions during the Global War on Terror.
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“After giving the nomination careful consideration, I agree that Sgt. 1st Class Cashe’s actions merit award of the Medal of Honor,” then-Defense Secretary Esper wrote in August. “Before we can take further action with this nomination, Congress must waive this time limit. Once legislation is enacted authorizing the president of the United States to award, if he so chooses, the Medal of Honor to Sgt. 1st Class Cashe, I will provide my endorsement to the president."
“I am so grateful the Senate passed our bill to pave the way for the President to award Alwyn Cashe the Medal of Honor,” Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., said in a statement following the bill's final hurdle in Congress. “We are now very close to recognizing this unbelievably heroic soldier, who died saving his men, with our nation’s highest award for combat valor—which he earned beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
The president's approval is now the only obstacle between Cashe and the Medal of Honor.
"We just call him Al."
"We just call him Al," White said, smiling. "He's my baby brother, the last child born of my mother. She would be sitting here ... unfortunately it was not God's will that she see it to the end but it is my desire to see it to fruition."
Cashe's family and supporters have been working for years to see his award upgraded.
"I thought I had exhausted all my options. I told my kids I can't leave this world without it happening," White said. "Hopefully (it passes) so that Alwyn will get the medal that he deserves and so no other service person has to go through what we've gone through."
It's because of Cashe's fellow service members and veterans the family has learned more about him over the years.
"They know him," she said. "We learned a different side of our brother, a very positive and generous side we knew, but we didn't know the military side."
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One of those is Alejandro Villanueva, a Steelers player and Army veteran who wore Cashe's name on his helmet during a recent game.
"Pittsburgh knows my brother's story and I'm thankful for that," White said.
White was firm when she said she didn't believe discrimination played a role in the wait for Cashe's award upgrade, saying she believed Army officials did the best they could with the information they had at the time.
"We knew it wasn't a race thing," she said. "Because he didn't stand at the Bradley and pull out only the black guys ... he pulled them out because they were his boys, they were his men. He loved them and they loved him ... He did what he did because he was a soldier."
Grassroots efforts have sprung up to rename a military base for Cashe, perhaps one of those currently named for a Confederate leader. White said she wouldn't want anything taken away from someone else in order to honor her brother, and neither would he, but she would celebrate any way the Army chose to honor him.
"I don't want to take anything from any other soldier," she said. "I don't want to take anything from anybody else to give it to Al. He never took anything from anyone else."
Cashe was the youngest of eight siblings, and his family still mourns him.
"He was my baby," White said. "He was the youngest. I didn't feel like he was the first of our family, of the children, to die."
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Reach Abbie Bennett: abbie@connectingvets.com or @AbbieRBennett. Want to get more connected to the stories and resources Connecting Vets has to offer? Click here to sign up for our weekly newsletter.