Brendan O'Connor (soldier)

Sergeant Major Brendan W. O'Connor (born 1960) is a retired Special Forces medical sergeant in the United States Army. On April 30, 2008, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroic action in Afghanistan. The DSC is the nation's second highest award for valor (after the Medal of Honor) and this was only the second time since the Vietnam War that the medal was awarded.

On June 23, 2006, O'Connor and his team were ambushed by over 250 Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan. During the ensuing 17½ hours of intense combat, two soldiers were seriously wounded. The Afghan translator with the team radioed for permission to kill the two wounded soldiers and himself to prevent the Taliban from capturing, then torturing, mutilating, and executing them.

In 1994, he resigned his commission in the Reserves and enlisted in the Active Army to become a Special Forces medical sergeant. In 2005, he deployed to Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom as a medical sergeant and a team's operations sergeant.

Brendan W. O'Connor was born at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, the fifth of six children, to LTC Mortimer O'Connor and Elizabeth O'Connor. After his father died in combat in Vietnam, the family settled in Moorestown, New Jersey, where he attended Moorestown High School. Brendan enlisted in the United States Army Reserve (USAR) and enrolled in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps at Valley Forge Military Junior College at Wayne, Pennsylvania, in 1978. He was commissioned in 1980 and served as the executive officer of a Special Forces team, later as a rifle platoon leader and rifle company commander, and then as a team commander.