Staff Sergeant Andrew William Harvell was born on September 26, 1984, in Long Beach, California. He grew up there with his older brother, Sean, and graduated from Millikan High School in June 2002. That November he arrived at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, for basic training, already bound for one of the most demanding career fields in the military.
Andy went straight into the Combat Control training pipeline. Over the next two years he completed Army Airborne School, Air Force Survival School, Air Traffic Control School and Combat Control School. With the Special Tactics Training Squadron he completed the Special Forces Combat Diver Course, Military Free Fall School and the upgrade training that made him a combat-mission-ready Combat Controller. He also became a static-line jumpmaster. A former commander later said that Andy never gave up in the grueling pipeline and instilled confidence in everyone around him.
In January 2006 Andy joined the 21st Special Tactics Squadron at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, and completed four combat deployments in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. In May 2009 he assessed and was selected for the 24th Special Tactics Squadron. As a Combat Controller his job was to slip undetected into hostile territory, establish assault zones, control air traffic and direct close air support for special operations forces. Teammates said listening to Andy on the radio “was like sweet music”; his steady voice put pilots at ease. One team leader said he could switch instantly from jokester to one of the bravest and most technically proficient Combat Controllers he had ever seen.
On the night of August 6, 2011, during his second deployment with the 24th Special Tactics Squadron, Andy was part of a special operations assault force flying into the Tangi Valley in Wardak Province, Afghanistan. As the CH-47 Chinook, call sign Extortion 17, approached the objective, it was shot down, killing all 38 people aboard, including 30 Americans. Andy was 26. Among those lost with him were his fellow Special Tactics Airmen, Technical Sergeants Daniel Zerbe and John Brown.
Andy’s decorations include the Bronze Star Medal with one oak leaf cluster, the Purple Heart, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Air Medal, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, the Joint Service Achievement Medal and the Air Force Combat Action Medal.
More than 300 family members, friends and teammates attended his memorial, where the room filled with laughter as people retold stories of his legendary sense of humor. His funeral procession traveled 30 miles from Long Beach to Los Angeles National Cemetery, his casket carried in a glass caisson and his brother Sean leading the motorcycle procession. An AC-130 gunship and four F-16s flew overhead. More than one hundred Combat Controllers and Pararescuemen laid their berets beside his and hammered their flashes into his casket. His wife, Krista, said, “He was a warrior and took to the enemy without hesitation, but when home, he was kind, gentle, patient and completely loving to our children and myself.” She called their sons, Hunter and Ethan, two of his three remarkable legacies.
Andy is survived by Krista and their sons, his father John Harvell, his mother Jane Maher and his sister Analese Eder. His brother, Technical Sergeant Sean Harvell, was himself a Combat Controller and a Silver Star recipient; Sean passed away in 2016. As Andy liked to say, “Victory or Valhalla.”
Andy was a warrior's warrior—fierce on the battlefield, deeply loyal to his teammates and forever etched into Special Tactics history.
USAF Special Tactics Command
Sources
- Coast X Coast Foundation: Andrew Harvell (official Special Tactics biography text)
- Air Force News Service: Combat controller buried, had ‘heart of a lion’ (Sept. 13, 2011)
- Congressional Record, Senate, Nov. 15, 2011
- NBC Los Angeles: Andrew Harvell – “Heart of a Lion”
- National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum: Extortion 17
- Family-provided records on file with MVF: Andy Harvell Bio.docx (includes AFSOC article text)
