La Porte Marine to get Navy Cross for Valor Under Fire 
  From the Houston Chronicle

Sgt. Christopher Farias drifted back to consciousness to the sound of his fellow Marines screaming in pain. The La Porte High School graduate had been knocked out when Taliban fighters launched a surprise attack on his patrol base in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. Eleven Marines were injured by explosive rounds, four of them critically. Dazed, Farias scrambled to his feet and tried to make sense of the chaos. He noticed a puddle of blood on the ground, then touched his neck. His hand came away red.
Farias collapsed. Another Marine who came to his aid stared at him in horror - "the death look," Farias called it.
But Farias wasn't done yet, far from it. Despite multiple shrapnel wounds, a severe concussion and a broken clavicle bone, the sergeant climbed onto a rooftop to lead a counterattack, drawing enemy fire. His actions repelled the Taliban long enough to allow a helicopter to evacuate his injured comrades.
This week, Farias, 26, will receive the Navy Cross for his "fearless leadership" and "conspicuous gallantry" during the 2010 battle.
The Navy Cross is one of the military's highest decorations for valor, second only to the Medal of Honor.
"That right there is shocking because I didn't think it was such a big deal," Farias said on Monday. "... I was doing what I had to do."
Born in Clear Lake, Farias joined the Marines after graduating from La Porte High School in 2004.
"I was a troublemaker in high school, didn't have much going for me, so I wanted to get my life straight," he said.
On his fourth deployment, Farias was laughing with his best friend under a tree at dusk on Oct. 5, 2010, when an explosion ripped through the patrol base. About 25 Taliban had ambushed his unit.
The blast hurled Farias against a wall. When he came to, "I could just hear screaming and people trying to pull people under cover," he said. "I saw the tree destroyed and packs destroyed and gear destroyed and so much blood everywhere."
The Marine who gave Farias "the death look" patched him up. "I asked him what was wrong with me, and he said, 'You're fine, you're fine,' so I said, 'OK I'm fine,' " Farias said. "That's when I heard machine gun fire, and I didn't think anything of it anymore. I just went and did what I had to do."
Farias directed other Marines to get the wounded under cover, grabbed his gun, sprinted through a hail of bullets and pulled himself onto the roof. "Bullets were landing in front of me, beside me, behind me," Farias said. "I had no idea I was running through that. The only thing in my head was I need to get to the roof, I need to get to the roof, because nobody's firing back and something needed to get done." From his rooftop perch, Farias could see the enemy position. He got six other Marines to climb up too, and they opened fire on the Taliban.
Farias said he felt no pain during the battle, which lasted about an hour. The Marines almost ran out of ammunition. "We kind of thought we might not get out of there," Farias said. His friends urged him to evacuate with other wounded Marines on the helicopter, but the sergeant refused to leave.
"I believed if I left without a proper relief, somebody to take charge, who knows what would happen?" he said. "To be honest, I just didn't want to leave my Marines, my buddies alone."When the battle ended, Farias walked more than a mile, unaided, to an evacuation site.
"That's when I felt every bit of pain possible," he said. "I couldn't move my right arm, like all of sudden I just couldn't move it. I felt really weak because of all the blood I was losing." Farias blacked in and out. His buddies slapped him to keep him awake. A helicopter finally took him to a hospital at Camp Leatherneck, where he underwent surgery.
Farias' family will travel from Houston to California to watch him receive the Navy Cross during a ceremony Friday at Camp Pendleton.
"We're very, very lucky that he's still with us today," said his dad, Lawrence Farias, of Baytown.
No father wants his child to take such risks, "but I know my son and I know he would put himself in harm's way to protect his friends and comrades," he said.
"It's more than just a brotherhood between 'em," he added. "The thing that you always hear in movies is we never leave anyone behind. That is so true. I think people don't really comprehend it. They think, 'Oh that's just a line that Hollywood uses.' No, it's not."