WALB-TV spoke to Braswell in 2010 about his harrowing story about how he earned one of the highest American honors: the Bronze Star of Valor.
Braswell said in 2006, he was a team medic, driving a truck in a convoy headed across northern Iraq, when the lead truck hit an improvised explosive device and exploded. Live ammunition in the truck was going off as it burned, with three wounded men inside. Braswell went in to save them.
"There was nothing but thick smoke and fire; flames coming out. I checked to make sure it was safe enough for me to break through. But I heard the people. I had to get to them, so there was no other way. So I went through there; got to the people," Braswell told WALB-TV.
While Braswell tended the wounded, he fired warning shots at another suspected enemy vehicle approaching them. Their maps were burned up in the attack, but Braswell was able to lead the convoy to its destination because he knew the area.
Friends of Braswell say he was in Albany to bury his brother, who had recently died.
No charges have been filed. The death investigation continues.
He survived serving in Iraq and earned one of the highest American honors, but a local war hero died during a fist fight in Georgia.
Posted by WSB-TV on Friday, July 15, 2016
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