Lt. Col. Brent Fenstermaker, of Whitehall, received the Army’s Legion of Merit during his recent retirement ceremonies.

Fenstermaker was born and raised in Allentown and started his military career in 1988 with the 111th Infantry. He has a degree from Moravian College and a diploma in nursing from St. Luke’s.

In 2003, Fenstermaker was deployed to Iraq, where he was the principal adviser to the Multi-National Division Coalition Surgeon on logistics. He was responsible for all combat health logistics systems for the war effort. He supported 135,000 medical personnel from 35 different nations.

During combat operations, he was awarded the Bronze Star.

In 2010, Fenstermaker, after a successful tour of duty at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, was asked to be an adviser to the Saudi Arabian National Guard. The program was a joint venture between the United States and Saudi Arabia to modernize health support organizations. He worked to develop policy and procedures and modify organizations of Saudi Arabia’s 114,000-man National Guard force. He returned to serve as a battalion commander for the 7238th Medical Support Unit in Fort Hamilton, N.Y.

In his most recent assignment, Fenstermaker served as deputy chief emergency preparedness liaison officer supporting the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Philadelphia. While on his latest assignment, he served on action teams at the West Virginia Chemical Spill, Hurricane Joaquin, Winter Storm Jonas, State of the Union address in 2014, World Meeting of Families and the papal visit in Philadelphia.

“In his 28 years of military service, Col. Fenstermaker never failed to answer the call to duty,” said Col. Nathanial Shropshire, Fenstermaker’s commanding officer. “His actions are in the finest traditions of military service.”