NORWICH RECORD | Winter 2021
Norwich graduate and U.S. Army Sgt. Maj. Thomas “Patrick” Payne ’17 (center) and his family are briefed in the Red Room at the White House on Sept. 11, 2020. Later that day, Payne was awarded the Medal of Honor—the nation’s highest military honor—for his actions in Iraq on Oct. 22, 2015. Serving as an assistant team leader of a Special Operations joint task force, Payne helped American and Kurdish commandos rescue 75 prisoners from an Islamic State prison compound in the town of Huwija.
U.S. Army photo by Spc. Zachery Perkins.