6 soldiers who subdued Fort Stewart shooter awarded medals
FORT STEWART, Ga. (WTOC/Gray News) - Six soldiers were honored on Thursday for subduing the Army sergeant who opened fire at Fort Stewart.
The Secretary of the Army, Hon. Dan Driscoll, awarded First Sgt. Joshua Arnold, Master Sgt. Justin Thomas, Staff Sgt. Melissa Taylor, Staff Sgt. Robert Pacheco, Sgt. Aaron Turner and Sgt. Eve Rodarte with medals.
The six soldiers subdued the suspected shooter, identified as logistics Sgt. Quornelius Radford, 28, after he opened fire at his workplace on Wednesday. Radford is accused of using a personal handgun, not a military-issued weapon.
Turner and Thomas restrained the shooter as the other soldiers tended to the soldiers who were shot.
Five soldiers were shot and taken to the hospital. All of the victims are expected to survive.
The Army won’t release names pending notification of family members and they won’t speculate on motive, Lt. Col. Angel Tomko said at a news conference.
Three of the victims have since been released from the hospital.
One of the soldiers, who remains at Winn Army Community Hospital, is doing well and is expected to recover. Another soldier remains at Memorial Health University Medical Center and is expected to have a longer road to recovery.
The suspect is in custody and will likely be transferred to a military facility in the near future.
Located about 40 miles southwest of Savannah, Fort Stewart is the largest Army post east of the Mississippi River. It’s home to thousands of soldiers assigned to the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division and family members.
This latest act of violence on a U.S. military installation — sites that are supposed to be among the most secure in the country — again raised concerns about safety and security within the armed forces’ own walls.
Among the deadliest acts of violence on U.S. military bases was a 2009 attack. A U.S. Army psychiatrist killed 13 people in a shooting that left more than 30 wounded at Fort Hood, a military installation in Texas.
In 2013, a defense contract worker and former Navy reservist killed 12 people at Washington Navy Yard. He was then killed in a gun battle with police.
In 2014, a soldier opened fire on his fellow service members at Fort Hood, killing three people and wounding more than a dozen others before the gunman killed himself.
In 2019, an aviation student opened fire in a classroom at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, killing three people and injuring another dozen people including two sheriff’s deputies. Just days earlier, a U.S. Navy sailor shot two people to death before killing himself at Pearl Harbor, the Naval station in Hawaii.
Copyright 2025 WTOC via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
