On the night of 3 January 2026, the first helicopter into one of the most sensitive raids in recent American history was an Army MH-47 Chinook flown by Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover. Minutes later he had four bullets in his leg. Seven weeks after that, with a walker at his side, he received the Medal of Honor in the chamber of the House of Representatives.

Slover, a pilot with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the “Night Stalkers”, flew the lead aircraft in Operation Absolute Resolve, the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. His story has been shared widely online. This is what the official record says.

The lead aircraft

The helicopters had to reach the objective at night, low, and undetected, through an integrated air defence network. According to Slover’s Medal of Honor citation, he led the helicopter force through a dense jungle valley in a mountainous region, in marginal weather, past numerous terrain hazards and what the citation calls near insurmountable surface-to-air threats.

As his MH-47 touched down at the landing zone, it was hit by machine-gun fire from several positions at close range. Fifteen armour-piercing rounds came into the cockpit. Four struck Slover in the leg; other accounts describe his wounds as to the leg and hip.

He did not lift off. A helicopter that leaves a hot landing zone early can leave troops aboard or on the ground without support. Slover held the Chinook in position, in the line of fire, until the assault force had disembarked. Then, badly wounded, he identified the heavy machine-gun positions that were firing on his aircraft and on the troops, and manoeuvred the MH-47 so that his door gunner could engage them. The threats were neutralised.

A career of hard landings

Slover enlisted in the Army in 2005, went through Warrant Officer Candidate School and flight school, and became a Chinook pilot. In November 2009, flying with the 82nd Airborne Division during a casualty evacuation in Badghis Province, Afghanistan, his helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade that failed to explode and stayed lodged in the aircraft for the rest of the flight. He later joined the Night Stalkers and was twice awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with the “V” device for valour.

The 160th was formed after the failure of Operation Eagle Claw in Iran in 1980, when the lack of a dedicated special operations helicopter unit proved disastrous, a story we tell in Désert One : La nuit où tout a mal tourné. Its crews fly modified MH-47 Chinooks, MH-60 Black Hawks and MH-6 Little Birds, mostly at night and at very low level, and the regiment’s best-known battle remains Mogadishu in 1993.

A Medal of Honor in the House chamber

The award moved unusually fast. Medal of Honor nominations normally take a year or more to pass through the chain of command; Slover’s was approved in time for him to receive it from President Trump during the State of the Union address on 24 February 2026, the first time the medal had ever been presented at a State of the Union. His wife Amy was with him. Korean War fighter pilot Capt. E. Royce Williams, aged 100, received the Medal of Honor at the same address.

Slover is the first Chief Warrant Officer 5 ever to receive the Medal of Honor, and he is widely reported to be the first Night Stalker to receive it. Some details in the versions circulating online, such as exactly who recommended the award and how the controls were handed over after he was hit, have not been confirmed in the official record and are left out here.

Sources: Congressional Medal of Honor Society, Eric A. Slover citation (February 2026); Military Times, 25 February 2026; Associated Press; Heliops Magazine; CNN; Wikipedia, “Eric Slover” and “160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment”.