ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — Freddie Jackson never had any trouble with her son, Staff Sgt. Stevon Booker, and did not know him to be a loud person.

“You don’t show that to mother,” she said.

But Retired Brig. Gen. Andy Hilmes, who was his company commander in Iraq in April 2003, said otherwise.

“Booker looked, acted and sounded like the Abrams tank that he commanded in every way. I sincerely mean this, he was both literally and physically just like a tank,” Hilmes told the crowd gathered Thursday at the Army base to dedicate the service’s new combat vehicle, the M10 Booker. “For starters, you always heard Staff Sgt. Booker well before you saw him. He was very loud.”

Army leaders first unveiled the light, tank-like armored vehicle and its new name last summer. The name honors Staff Sgt. Stevon A. Booker, who received the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously for life-saving valor in the 2003 Iraq invasion, and Pvt. Robert D. Booker, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for heroic actions in Tunisia in 1943 that cost his life.

“Pvt. Booker and Staff Sgt. Booker took great risks to ensure their fellow soldiers were supported by effective fire in the thick of battle,” said Doug Bush, the Army’s assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology. “The M10 Booker is precisely designed to fill this role — to supply devastating firepower in support of infantry in the thick of the fight.”

Staff Sgt. Booker’s Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest Army medal for battlefield heroics, was awarded April 5, 2019, exactly 16 years after he was killed. Booker’s death came as he protected his unit’s flank while helping lead the 3rd Infantry Division’s assault into Baghdad, known as the Thunder Runs, which toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime at the opening of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

When his tank unit came under fire during the raid into Iraq’s capital, Booker “immediately reacted,” according to the award citation. As he communicated the situation with his commanders, he returned fire on the machine gun mounted on his Abrams tank and “reassured his crew that they would make it to their objective.”

“When both his and his crew’s machine guns malfunctioned, Booker, with total disregard for his personal safety, exposed himself by lying in a prone position on top of the tank’s turret and accurately engaged the enemy forces with his personal weapon,” the citation reads. “While exposed, he effectively protected his platoon’s flank and delivered accurate information to his command during a critical and vulnerable point of the battle.”

From that exposed position, he destroyed an enemy vehicle before the troops inside could attack his platoon, and he continued to fire on enemy forces while the tank rolled through the fight for nearly 5 miles “until he was mortally wounded.”

About 60 family members from the staff sergeant’s family attended the ceremony. Jackson said Thursday’s event was a blessing and an honor.

“[Staff Sgt. Booker] always said he was going to go to Hollywood. All the honor that we have had, this is Hollywood for me,” she said.

The M10 Booker is the Army’s first vehicle to be named after a soldier who fought in a post 9/11 war. But the new armored vehicle also honors fallen soldiers killed in the Iraq War and World War II, service officials said.

“Most soldiers fade into history, their deeds unremembered,” said Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, the Army’s program executive officer in charge of ground combat systems. “But their legacy lives on.”

Rose Hirsch, Pvt. Booker’s sister, said she was 10 years old at Sunday school when she learned her brother was killed in action.

“That was really hard,” she said, adding the ceremony was a little overwhelming but also a “great honor.”

Hirsch was one of about 15 family members who traveled to see the ceremony.

Pvt. Booker was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor — the nation’s highest military honor — about a year after his April 9, 1943, death while engaged with enemy forces near Fondouk, Tunisia, where he was assigned to the 133rd Infantry Regiment of the 34th Infantry Division.

Under heavy machine gun and mortar fire, Booker carried a light machine gun and a box of ammunition “over 200 yards of open ground” to set up a fighting position, according to his medal citation.

“He continued to advance despite the fact that two enemy machine guns and several mortars were using him as an individual target,” the citation reads.

As he neared his chosen fighting position, enemy artillery fire began to fall near him, but he “immediately commenced firing” on two enemy machine gun positions.

He was wounded, but he continued to fight, destroyed one machine gun position before he was struck again, suffering the wound that would kill him.

“With his last remaining strength, he encouraged the members of his squad and directed their fire,” according to the citation. “Pvt. Booker acted without regard for his own safety. His initiative and courage against insurmountable odds are an example of the highest standard of self-sacrifice and fidelity to duty.”

After nearly an hour Thursday, the Army concluded the ceremony with a live demonstration in the field behind the stage by firing three rounds from the M10 Booker. Audience members were encouraged to wear earplugs that the service had placed on seats for hearing protection.

The Booker was placed on a designated strip with a direct target a few hundred yards away. The demonstration took less than 3 minutes and drew a smattering of applause from the crowd.

The M10 Booker is light enough for two of them to fit inside a C-17 transport aircraft and deploy worldwide on short notice, said Brig. Gen. Geoffrey Norman, director of the Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross Functional Team.

Army officials have said the service expects to stand up its first M10 battalion to conduct initial operations testing in late 2024 or early 2025.

Dean said the service is working to get a company built up and begin training in the summer with troopers of the 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Liberty, N.C. Maneuver training will be conducted at Fort Liberty, followed by gunnery training with the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga.

If the vehicle meets approval, the 82nd Airborne will become the first combat company equipped with M10 Bookers.

The weapon, built by General Dynamics, shares many aspects of the Abrams tank. It will be manned by four tankers in a cockpit nearly identical to an Abrams and sports a heavy, 105mm direct-fire cannon, like older models of Abrams.

But the Booker is much lighter than the newest versions of the Abrams tanks, which have 120mm main guns. The Army’s M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams tank weighs nearly 74 tons and the M10 will weigh about 42 tons, the service previously said.

Production will begin with one Booker per month and eventually grow to 26 to 35 a year, Dean said. Bush said it will take about a decade to reach the production contract’s final number of 350.

“The intent is to support lighter infantry formations who usually don’t move with as much heavy equipment. Our big, heavy formations — like the 3rd Infantry Division — they take a little longer to get to combat theater, but they come with massive combat power when they arrive,” Dean said.

From a logistical standpoint, Bush said the M10 Booker compared to the Abrams is much less — it uses less fuel, easy to move around, ammunition and parts are “way less.”

When they are thinking about the Pacific and getting a vehicle there quickly, he said it is “exactly what we need.”

previous coverage

• Army unveils the M10 Booker, its first new combat vehicle in two decades
• Army elevates soldier’s Silver Star to second-highest valor medal

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