Words from Afghanistan - Sgt Patrick Tower SMV (ITOW)

On the Reasons for Valour Awards in Afghanistan

Selected quotes from the book In Their Own Words.

Sergeant Tower received his decoration for his actions at the White School on 3 August 2006.

"When someone goes down, the next guy takes over. I feel that if I could I’d give a medal to every guy in my platoon that day….Everyone one of them did an amazing job that day and they all own a piece of that medal. They all contributed. I don’t’ see it so much as a medal for me as for all of 9 Platoon.

"A lot of people congratulate you on a medal. But for anyone to get awarded any sort of decoration, something really bad has to happen. If everything is going good, no one is getting a medal. When you read any of these citations, things were pretty much not going as planned. It’s always something going bad."

(In Their Own Words: Canadian Stories of Valour and Bravery from Afghanistan, 2001-2009. Canadian Defence Academy Press, Kingston, 2013. Page 155.)

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