PUYALLUP, Wash. — A Green Beret killed in a 2017 ambush by Islamic militants in Niger was awarded the Silver Star on Tuesday, the culmination of an about-face by the Army over the controversial incident in the War on Terrorism.

Brig. Gen. Kirk Brinker, deputy commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, came from Fort Bragg, N.C., to award the nation’s third highest medal for valor in combat to Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black. The medal was presented to Black’s wife, Michelle, sons Ezekiel and Isaac, and parents Hank and Karen Black.

“Let’s stop for a moment and honor just a humble, a thoughtful and intelligent human being who did the most virtuous thing any human being can do - simply put, Bryan Black sacrificed himself for somebody else,” Brinker said.

About 75 family, friends, fellow soldiers, and others were at the ceremony on a blustery day at Pioneer Park in Puyallup, just east of Tacoma, where Black grew up.

It was the second time that the Army has posthumously honored Black, one of four Americans killed during an Oct. 4, 2017, ambush near Tongo Tongo in the West African nation of Niger.

Black, 35, was a Green Beret with the 3rd Special Forces Group from Fort Bragg, one of 11 American soldiers on a patrol with 30 Nigerien soldiers acting on a tip that they might find Doundou Chefou, an Islamic militant leader in the area.

After a day of searching, the unit found no sign of Chefou. They began the 16-mile hike back to their base.

It was a trap. More than 100 heavily armed militants had been following their search and set up an ambush on higher ground with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Black, the unit’s medical sergeant, was cut down as he tried to aid two wounded soldiers who were in the open, exposed to the heaviest fire, according to Army reports.

Black was killed along with three other American soldiers: Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, 39, of Springboro, Ohio, Sgt. La David T. Johnson, 25, of Miami Gardens, Fla., and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, 29, of Lyons, Ga. Four Nigerien soldiers were also killed. The rest of the unit was able to fight its way to safer ground.

After the firefight, an Army report blamed the unit for poor mission preparation and a lack of caution in their route. A recommendation for Wright to receive the Medal of Honor was rejected, with the Army eventually settling on a Silver Star. La David Johnson was also awarded a Silver Star.

Family members of the soldiers and some in the Army rejected the initial 2019 report. A further review found the captain overseeing the mission had wanted to cancel it when promised air support could not be provided. He was overruled by a superior officer based in Chad. The review also found senior officers had not made plans for medical evacuation of any wounded from the patrol.

Black and Sgt. Jeremiah Johnson were belatedly awarded the Bronze Star with a “V” device for valor.

In 2022, French special forces attacked and killed a contingent of militants from the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. Among items that the French troops found at the militant camp were body cameras taken from some of the soldiers in the 2017 ambush, including one from Jeremiah Johnson.

Based on the footage, Johnson’s Bronze Star was changed to a Silver Star. In the summer, an additional review of the film led to the decision to upgrade Black’s Bronze Star to a Silver Star as well.

“We watched it over and over again,” Brinker said in an interview after the ceremony. “At different angles, we realized, not only was he exposing himself when he was shooting, he came out at greater exposure and risked himself to render aid and he was hit in the process.”

Brinker said the additional reviews and video captured by the French had added “clarity” to what happened.

At the ceremony in Puyallup, speakers focused on Black, a child chess champion who graduated from Puyallup High School in 2000 and joined the Army in 2009.

Brinker lauded Black for not only becoming a combat-skilled Green Beret but also training as a medic.

“A warrior and a healer,” he said.

Hank Black, who served as a Marine in the earlier days of the War on Terrorism, recalled his son would write often while he was deployed in Iraq to update him on his latest interests back home.

“He became a successful entrepreneur, stock trader, ski instructor, soldier, Green Beret,” Hank Black said. “But beyond that, Bryan excelled at being a husband, a father, a son, a friend.”

The ceremony ended with the audience standing in silence as a recording of “The Ballad of the Green Beret” was played.

Bryan Black’s two sons stood with some friends near the front of the stage.

Isaac, 17, said listening to the speeches and talking with people helped him know more about his father. Isaac was 9 years old in 2018 when he accompanied his mother to Raleigh Durham International Airport near Fort Bragg where his father’s flag-draped coffin was carried off an Air Force transport plane.

“I only know a small piece of his story and this helps fill it in, what people thought about him, the kind of person he was,” Isaac Black said.

Ezekiel, 18, who everyone called “Zeke,” said he planned to use the next week to “spend time with my family, hang out with my brother, harass him for a while like a big brother.”

Then he will travel to San Diego, where he starts boot camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot.

Ezekiel is continuing his family’s military service. He’ll train to be an aviation mechanic.

“I was going to be a machine gunner, but when my test scores came in, I realized I had some other options - this is something transferable for the future,” Ezekiel said.

Just outside the Pioneer Park Pavilion where the ceremony took place, rain swept the bandstand and playground. On the far side of the park are two chess tables — a memorial to Black built with $7,500 donated by local residents. It’s near the monument to local service members who have fought in wars over the decades and bears Bryan Black’s name.

“He is and always will be Puyallup’s hometown hero,” Deputy Mayor Dennis King said.