Marine to be awarded Medal of Honor

[Murph]

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/Moh1.htm

From CNN:

Marine to receive Medal of Honor for Iraq heroism

(CNN) -- President Bush announced on Friday that the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military decoration, will be awarded posthumously to Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham.

In April 2004, Dunham was leading a patrol in an Iraqi town near the Syrian border when the patrol stopped a convoy of cars leaving the scene of an attack on a Marine convoy, according to military and media accounts of the action.

An occupant of one of the cars attacked Dunham and the two fought hand to hand. As they fought, Dunham yelled to fellow Marines, "No, no watch his hand." The attacker then dropped a grenade and Dunham hurled himself on top of it, using his helmet to try to blunt the force of the blast.

Still, Dunham was critically wounded in the explosion and died eight days later at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

"As long as we have Marines like Corporal Dunham, America will never fear for her liberty," Bush said Friday as he announced that Dunham would receive the award. Bush spoke at the dedication of the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia. (Watch announcement of award at museum -- 1:27)

"His was a selfless act of courage to save his fellow Marines," Sgt. Maj. Daniel A. Huff of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, was quoted as saying in Marine Corps News that April.

"He knew what he was doing," Lance Cpl. Jason A. Sanders, 21, of McAllester, Oklahoma, who was in Dunham's company, was quoted as saying by Marine Corps News. "He wanted to save Marines' lives from that grenade."

In various media accounts, fellow Marines told how Dunham had extended his enlistment shortly before he died so he could help his comrades.

"We told him he was crazy for coming out here," Lance Cpl. Mark E. Dean, 22, from Owasso, Oklahoma, said in Marine Corps News. "He decided to come out here and fight with us. All he wanted was to make sure his boys made it back home."

"He loved his country, believed in his mission, and wanted to stay with his fellow Marines and see the job through," Vice President Dick Cheney said when speaking of Dunham's heroism at a Disabled American Veterans conference in July 2004.

The Scio, New York, native would have been 25 years old on Friday.

In a letter urging Bush to honor Dunham with the Medal of Honor, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, called the Marine's actions "an act of unbelievable bravery and selflessness."

Dunham's story was told in the book "The Gift of Valor," written by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Phillips.

Dunham will be the second American to receive the Medal of Honor from service in Iraq.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith was the other, honored for action near Baghdad International Airport in April 2003, in which he killed as many as 50 enemy combatants while helping wounded comrades to safety. Smith was the only U.S. soldier killed in the battle.

[Killeenguy]

amazing story. it shows strength to sacrafice yourself for your fellow commrade. hopefully w/ the spread of this story...it will produce more unselfish people.

[Breezy]

that is an awesome story

[Murph]

Another inspiring story:


Michelle Malkin

The story of Doug and Mike

Sixty years ago this week, U.S. Coast Guard Signalman Douglas A. Munro found himself on a boat near the edge of Guadalcanal. The Japanese were building an airfield on the obscure island in the South Pacific.

American naval carriers dropped off thousands of Marines to neutralize the airbase.

Guadalcanal was a miserable, malaria-plagued jungle infested with giant lizards and furry spiders. And enemy snipers and air raiders. The Marines on shore survived on Spam and boll weevil-ridden rice. Two weeks after their initial landing, they captured the airstrip. But the bloody battles and sleepless nights would not end for another six months. Twenty-two-year-old Munro himself would never set foot on Guadalcanal. But the Washington state native helped 500 men escape from the hellish island, and after six decades, his actions continue to inspire generations of Marines and Coast Guard officers.

On Sept. 27, 1942, more than two dozen Japanese bombers launched an air raid over the Matanikau River, which formed the western edge of the Marine perimeter. Lt. Col. Lewis "Chesty" Puller and the Marines of the 7th Regiment were pinned on the river bank. The embattled Marines had spelled out the word "HELP" in the sand. A scout/dive bomber spotted the plea.

As coxswain of a 36-foot Higgins boat, Douglas Munro took charge of a group of 24 vessels near Point Cruz, where the Marines waited to be rescued. President Franklin Roosevelt described the scene in a citation honoring Munro, the Coast Guard's lone winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor:

"After making preliminary plans for the evacuation of nearly five hundred beleaguered Marines, Munro, under constant strafing by enemy machine guns on the island and at great risk of his life, daringly led five of his small craft toward the shore. As he closed the beach, he signaled the others to land and then in order to draw the enemy's fire and protect the heavily loaded boats, he valiantly placed his craft, with its two small guns, as a shield between the beachhead and the Japanese."

Minutes after the last Marine was safely on board, Munro was struck in the skull by enemy gunfire. He lived long enough to ask his shipmates one last selfless question: "Did they get off?"
I learned about Munro's heroism several years ago while living in Seattle, not far from Munro's childhood home and burial site in Cle Elum. I interviewed Mike Cooley, an 80-year-old vet and childhood friend, who visited Munro's grave twice a day and maintained the worn American flag that stood over the site where Munro and his parents are buried. Since the flag was not lit, Cooley had taken it upon himself to raise and lower the flag each dawn and dusk for more than three decades. He walked a few miles from his home to the cemetery to do his daily duty; when he battled pneumonia, his daughter drove him to the site. Cooley worried about whether someone would take his place when he passed, but cheerily told me that he was "sure someone will follow in my footsteps and take over when I'm gone."


In July 1999, Cooley died after a long illness. Two months later, spurred by several passionate chief petty officers, the Coast Guard (whose motto, "Semper Paratus," means "always ready") made good on Cooley's faith. At a ceremony attended by 800 people from across the country, the service erected a new flagpole with accent lights to keep Old Glory flying 24 hours a day at Munro's burial ground. Civilian and military volunteers helped raise funds for the project; local construction companies donated materials.


The celebration took place, Master Chief Petty Officer Vincent W. Patton III wrote, "under the clearest sky that the State of Washington had ever seen. I recall telling someone that the traditional grey skies.gave way to a picture perfect day only because Doug Munro and Mike Cooley wanted to make sure they had a perfect view of the action."


The legacy of Doug and Mike has been kept alive by the dedicated lamplighters of military history. We owe them all immeasurably for their resolution to serve, to sacrifice, and to remember.