Nevada County soldier honored for helping free hostage

A Grass Valley-area soldier has been honored for his role in freeing American contractor Roy Hallums from a pit where he was held captive in Iraq for 10 months.

U.S. Army Spc. Forrest Gielenz, 23, was presented with a certificate of appreciation from the U.S. State Department for serving on the mission that rescued Hallums, 57, on Sept. 7.

According to the U.S. Army, Gielenz and five members of the U.S. Army assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment were honored in a Sept. 21 ceremony.

They were members of a tank crew that provided fortification to protect a helicopter carrying a rescue team sent to retrieve Hallums, according to the U.S. Army.

Hallums, who lives in Orange County, was discovered bound and gagged in a small room. Ventilation came from a small fan and cracks in a concrete slab that doubled as a door to the room, according to the Army.

Hallums' captors would put a fresh coat of cement over the door after each time they opened it to give him food, Army reports said.

Gielenz, who returned home to Nevada County in August while on leave, said the ceremony honoring his fellow soldiers was a moving one.

"It was a real sincere thanks that you could tell came from the heart," he said in a statement released by the Army.

"Knowing that I participated in the rescue of an American who is now home safe and sound with his family was the best part of the whole thing"

Gielenz, who attended Bear River High School, has spent part of his time in Iraq protecting the heavily fortified section of Baghdad known as the "Green Zone."

Gielenz is serving an enlistment that ends in 2007.


<I>To contact staff writer David Mirhadi, e-mail davidm@theunion.com or call 477-4229.</I>