Staff Sgt. William Rose and Brett Moore finally got their medals Monday four years after their heroic actions outside Samarra. They saved five other guys from a Stryker that wound up upside down in nine feet of water near Samarra.

You can read the Army narrative to go along with the awards here for Rose and here for Moore.

As I mentioned in my story in Tuesday's paper, they not only saved lives, they probably saved their commanders and the Army from a considerable amount of heat. With the brigade already reeling from the loss of three soldiers in Strykers that fell into a canal eight days earlier, it is hard to figure what might have happened had they lost more soldiers in this second accident.

As it was, their company commander was relieved. Had there been more losses it's not out of the question to wonder if the battalion commander might've had to go as well. And it wouldn't have made the road any easier for the as-yet unproven Stryker vehicles.