Christopher Waiters was standing in the lobby of the Soldiers Field House at Fort Lewis when Gen. Peter Chiarelli entered. The two shook hands and chatted. Waiters thanked Chiarelli for flying in for the ceremony.

“Actually,” the Army’s vice chief of staff told the 26-year-old staff sergeant, “I’m the one who’s honored to be here today.”

Less than half an hour later, Waiters stood stone-faced before 1,500 people in the gymnasium as the four-star general awarded him the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest award for valor.

Waiters, a graduate of Timberline High School in Lacey, is only the 17th person to receive the award since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the first from Fort Lewis since the Vietnam War. The honor comes 17 months after he saved the lives of two soldiers and tried to rescue a third while serving as a member of the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, a unit of the 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

The bleachers of the Field House were packed with people for the ceremony, and dozens more filled long rows of folding chairs. Waiters’ family members drove up from Lacey or flew from Germany for the event. He received two standing ovations. And after it was finished, hundreds gathered in two lines snaking across the gymnasium floor to congratulate him.

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The Army released a few photos of Staff Sgt. Christopher Waiters saving two other soldiers from a burning Bradley Fighting Vehicle on April 5, 2007 -- the actions that earned him a Distinguished Service Cross:

A soldier formerly based at Fort Lewis will receive the Distinguished Service Cross at a ceremony this afternoon. Not many of these awards -- the military's second-highest -- have been awarded. Just how do they stack up?

Here's a box we'll run with tomorrow's paper:

Medal of Honor: Awarded to “a person who, while a member of the Army, distinguishes himself or herself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her life above and beyond the call of duty.”

Distinguished Service Cross: Awarded to “a person who, while serving in any capacity with the Army, distinguishes himself or herself by extraordinary heroism not justifying the award of a Medal of Honor.”

Silver Star: Awarded to “a person who, while serving in any capacity with the U.S. Army, is cited for gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States while engaged in military operations involving conflict.”

Bronze Star: Awarded to “any person who, while serving in any capacity in or with the military of the United States after 6 December 1941, distinguished himself or herself by heroic or meritorious achievement or service.”

I’m working on a story about command-directed transfers, a process in which National Guardsmen are moved to deploying units to help shore up any shortage of troop numbers.

About 200-225 soldiers were assigned to the 81st Brigade of the Washington National Guard – which is in the process of deploying to Iraq – through the procedure.

A few soldiers and their family members aren't happy about that.

The brigade received its mobilization order in March. Its stop-loss policy didn’t go into effect until mid-May. Between those two dates, Guard spokesman Lt. Keith Kosik said, the numbers of available soldiers in the 81st fluctuated for many reasons, such as retirements and transfers in or out of the state.

“Once stop-loss goes into effect,” he said, “we got a better understanding of who we have, because at that point all retirement, interstate transfers, etc., are on hold.”

And about 10 percent don’t make it through pre-deployment training. More than 2,400 members of the brigade are from Washington, so the National Guard alerted 250-300 soldiers that they could be transferred to the 81st Brigade as a contingency.

About 200-225 were actually transferred to the unit before it arrived in Fort McCoy, said Master Sgt. Dave Largent, another Washington National Guard spokesman.

“We gave as much notice as we possibly could,” Kosik said. “We notified people as soon as we knew that we were going to have to do that.”

Do you know anyone affected by this? Want to share your opinions? Shoot me an e-mail at scott.fontaine@thenewstribune.com.