By: Jessie Beckett

SPC/4, David Leland Chamberlin, 25, of Harrison County, of the 173rd Airborne, 1/504th in the United States Army, was awarded the Purple Heart, Combat Infantryman's Badge after sustaining life threatening injuries in Charkh, Afganistan. He was wounded by a 40mm rifle grenade and t

David's patrol element went out under the cover of darkness, to pull security and report enemy movement, about 3:30 a.m., on August 23, 2012. They had just received word at day break to pick up and link with the rest of the platoon when a rifle grenade went off about three feet away from David and a fellow soldier.  His fellow soldier was unharmed,  but  David was directly hit. David described his reaction, "I felt a sharp pain in my right hip and a white flash and a lot of heat from the explosion. Immediately afterwards we started taking accurate fire from two or three AK-47's about 150 meters away from our position. I rolled behind a wall because I couldn’t move my legs. Then I realized my rifle had been blown out of my hands so I rolled back into the open to get it and started returning fire."