MIDDLETOWN SOLDIER AWARDED ARMY COMMENDATION MEDAL

MIDDLETOWN SOLDIER AWARDED ARMY COMMENDATION MEDAL May 17, 2008

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He was late for work, or he wouldn’t even have mentioned it. Gladys Maina and Army Capt. Dan Tower (right) present a commendation medal to Sgt. Daniel Anderson. Anderson, a combat vet, rescued Maina from her wrecked car in February.
By Heather Yakin
Times Herald-Record
May 17, 2008
MIDDLETOWN — Smoke was filling Gladys Maina’s car, and she was trapped inside.
It was 8:15 a.m. on Feb. 1. A moment earlier, she’d been driving on Dolsontown Road, heading home from her job as an advocate at Crystal Run Village. A Jeep hit her head-on, crushing and spinning her car. She was in terrible pain.
Then a soldier appeared next to her car. He broke out a window, and the smoke cleared. He held her head and neck steady, and comforted her.
“He was calming, and telling me, ‘Ma’am, don’t worry, we’re doing everything we can,’ ” Maina said. “I could have died from the smoke. He saved my life.”
He stayed with Maina until firefighters cut her free and medics took her to the hospital, but she never got his name.
To her great joy, the soldier’s commander tracked her down. Yesterday at SUNY Orange in Middletown, Maina, now recovered, presented Sgt. Daniel Anderson with an Army Commendation Medal for his actions.
Anderson says he was just doing his job.
“I’ve got three combat tours,” he said. “I did the same thing I’d do for any freakin’ guy there.”
Anderson saw the crash on his way to work at the recruiting station in Middletown. As others stood by watching, he determined that the Jeep’s driver was fine — and the woman in the Nissan was not. He broke out her window because the door wouldn’t open, and he did what he could for Maina.
“None of it really seems out of the ordinary to me,” says Anderson, who served tours in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 and a 2005 tour in Afghanistan.
The only reason he told his commander what he’d done? He was late for work.
Anderson’s actions impressed Capt. Dan Tower of the Bear Mountain Recruiting Company, who recommended Anderson for the medal.
“He didn’t have to stay, but he did,” Tower said. “It’s something you can’t help but be proud of, as a commander.”
Maina thanked Anderson yesterday in front of a training class full of Anderson’s fellow recruiters.
“I am so, so grateful for him, and for what you people do,” she told the soldiers. “If not for him, I don’t know if I would be standing here today.”
“I didn’t do anything you all wouldn’t have done,” Anderson told his colleagues. LINK

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