Marine to receive Medal of Honor for Iraq heroism

[thedrifter]

Marine to receive Medal of Honor for Iraq heroism

(CNN) -- President Bush on Friday will announce 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 on which Dunham threw himself.

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

"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 new 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."

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

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.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

They Gave the Phenomenal Gift of Their Lives

The mother of a Marine killed in action says we must honor the memory of fallen soldiers by finishing the war.

Interview by Dena Ross

Debra Dunham is the mother of Cpl. Jason Dunham, winner of Beliefnet's People's Choice award for Most Inspiring Person of 2004, and Medal of Honor nominee. Since Jason's death in April of 2004, Debra and the Dunham family have received an outpouring of support and gratitude for Jason's sacrifice from soldiers and family members of those still in Iraq, as well as those whose loved ones have died. She spoke with Beliefnet about how we should honor the memories of those killed in action.

You've spoken with Marines who are still fighting in Iraq. What's your impression of how they're feeling? Do they feel like they have a job to finish or that they're tired of the war and want to go home?

From those I have talked with that are here [and] will be going back, and from the letters I get from some of the kids who are still over there--they feel that they have a job to do and would like to be able to complete the job they've started. They have a great deal of honor and commitment to each other, to the Corps, to the families of those who have been injured, and to those men and the women who have fallen.

What about the families you've spoken with who have had loved ones killed in action? How are they reacting to the continued war?

For those I've talked with, it's personal-it's not a political issue. Politics obviously plays in it, but we've lost part of our hearts. We've lost our family members, our sons, our husbands, wives, our child. And what we try to do is just find a new normal each day.

Everybody deals with it differently. It's learning to live with the loss and finding how to go on each day and how to live your day to the fullest. I know Jason wouldn't want us to sit and mope and not continue [on] with our lives because he gave his life so that we're still able to enjoy the freedoms here-to continue living and enjoying those, and being safe.

We have the pride that our son stood in place of those who were not able to do so for themselves. We still hold the pain, but we have our sons' memories to hold and their actions. As I said, it's a personal loss-this is not political.

Do the families feel resentful in any way?

Those who I have spoken with or received letters from-no.

Do you know a lot of soldiers who are reenlisting?

Several in Jason's battalion have reenlisted.

What are your thoughts on the war itself?

I'm not angry with the military or the government or the president. My son joined the Marines freely. He did the Delayed Entry [Program] the summer of his junior year [of high school]. He was looking at the fact that with the Marines he could get some very good training, he would have the GI Bill when he was completed and that would help him [with] college. His end goal was to become a state trooper here in New York. By joining the military he would get both the training and he would be able to use the GI Bill to help with college. Jason joined in 2000 when it was peaceful, but he knew that there was a possibility that this could happen and he wanted to be able to do that.

We have so many freedoms that we take for granted...

Do you think we should still be in Iraq?

We have so many freedoms that we take for granted in this country that men through the ages have fought for so that we can wake up everyday and [not] have to worry that a car is going to be parked out in front of a school that's going to be blown up. Terrorism is leaking from the countries that aren't as fortunate as our own country. It's hit here, it's hit London, and to cave to that, we lose. Everybody loses. And we've given into something that is the amount of a small child stamping their feet and insisting that it's OK to have an ice cream cone before supper. By leaving and not completing it, we dishonor those who have gone before, who gave the ultimate price. You have to support those who are still fighting too.

We have a lot of privileges and with the privileges in this country comes responsibility-the responsibility to help those who aren't able to help themselves is a commitment that you have to make and follow through with. You have to do more than lip service. Would it be nice if we didn't have to have the war? Yes. We're there-we have to finish it.

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of the army specialist killed in Iraq, has very publicly expressed her anger at President Bush's refusal to meet with her and to withdraw troops. What are your thoughts on what she's doing?

My heart bleeds for her, just as it does for any of us who have lost a child. She's doing what she believes is correct and she is going about it in a method that she feels is the best way. I feel like her son and my son fought for the freedoms that we still continue to have that allow her to be able to voice her opinion in the manner that she is doing.

If you could talk to her, what would you say?

I would tell her that our boys signed up on their own free will [and] that they knew that the possibility of danger was there even though, for my own son, it didn't look like it was going to be there. They both chose to follow through with their commitment. They chose careers that are very honorable and under-respected in some cases. We send our boys and girls to the military and they get phenomenal training and they go to war. War is ugly. We're going to lose, whether you're on the winning side or the losing side, everybody loses something. And we happen to pay the highest price-we've lost our children. [I'd tell her that] to grieve is normal, and everybody grieves differently. I can't really say that what's right for her and what's right for me are two of the same, or that I'm right and she's wrong. But to dishonor or to make light or get angry with the fact that our boys went to war and they lost their lives takes away from the fact that they gave the phenomenal gift of their lives so that others can be free.

For Jason, three other men are still alive and raising families and continuing with their lives. Whether they do something that is in God's plan that is phenomenal or they will be the grandparents of people who are going to do something for this world that is great-that's my belief. Jason's destiny was met, and he gave this gift to the three that are still alive. To say anything less than that would take away from that gift.

We really need to be so careful that we remember to honor the commitment and the sacrifices that our boys gave and not take away from it.

How can we honor those still fighting?

I think the best way that we can honor those who are still fighting is to support our troops-you don't need to support everything, but you need to support the men and women who chose to give us this freedom and to help others have freedom, that are following through on the jobs that they chose-and they do consider it a job. If you know of somebody still fighting, send them cards, send them letters, care packages, whatever. If you know of a family who has lost a person or who has a person who is still serving, just give them support-whether it's a card now and then, or a hug or whatever you can do just to let them know that you are there and that you care. We need not to be so negative. We need to be more supportive of those that chose to be there.

[thedrifter]

The Jason Dunham Memorial Web Site

www.jasonsmemorial.org/

[thedrifter]

November 10, 2006
Marine to receive Medal of Honor

By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer

President Bush announced today that Cpl. Jason Dunham, who died more than two years ago after covering a grenade with his helmet to save his fellow Marines, will receive the Medal of Honor.

This will be the first Medal of Honor — the nation’s highest award for battlefield heroism — bestowed on a Marine in the Iraq war and the first earned for combat action since 1970, during the Vietnam War.

Dunham, a 22-year-old machine gunner from Scio, N.Y., was manning a checkpoint near Karabilah, near the Syrian border in Iraq, on April 14, 2004, when an Iraqi man grabbed his throat. As the two scuffled, the Iraqi dropped a grenade with the pin removed, and Dunham quickly jumped on it, using his Kevlar helmet and body to smother the blast.

Shrapnel pierced his skull, and he died eight days later with his parents at his side at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Md.

Bush announced the award during a ceremony today at Quantico, Va., where Marines and other top military and government leaders gathered for the grand opening of the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

The Medal of Honor is typically presented by the president at an Oval Office ceremony at the White House.

Three of Dunham’s platoon mates with Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, suffered shrapnel wounds but survived. Two weeks later, Kilo Marines mourned Dunham at a memorial service held at their camp in Qaim, Iraq. “He knew what he was doing. He wanted to save Marines’ lives from that grenade,” said Lance Cpl. Jason Sanders, 21, a mortarman, according to a Marine Corps News article.

Dunham’s story was told in a book, “A Gift of Valor,” penned by a Wall Street Journal reporter embedded with 3/7 battalion in the spring 2004. In an article the reporter, Michael M. Phillips, wrote just weeks after Dunham’s death, unit leaders already had weighed the gravity of his final combat action and the potential recognition of that heroism.

The battalion commander at the time, Lt. Col. Matthew Lopez, submitted Dunham’s nomination for the Medal of Honor, noting “I deeply believe that given the facts and evidence presented, he clearly understood the situation and attempted to block the blast of the grenade from his squad members. His personal action was far beyond the call of duty and saved the lives of his fellow Marines,” Phillips recounted in his article.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., later issued a statement asking the president to award the Medal of Honor to Dunham, noting that his actions “embodied the courage and fortitude that have made the armed forces of the United States the most respected in the world. I can imagine no clearer case of an individual soldier exhibiting the ideals that the Congressional Medal was established to honor.”

Since his death, Dunham’s family and friends have maintained a web site, www.jasonsmemorial.org, and a memorial scholarship fund but largely have stayed on the sidelines as the nomination has run through the deliberate review process.

“Jason would have wanted to earn it on his own,” his mother, Deb Dunham, told Marine Corps Times in September. “We feel he’s earned it.”

Others honored

Dunham is the first Marine to receive the Medal of Honor since Vietnam, and the second to receive it for actions in the Iraq war.

On April 4, 2005, Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith’s family received the award in a White House ceremony, two years after Smith died in Iraq.

Smith was with 2nd Platoon, B Company, 11th Engineer Battalion when it was ordered to set up a temporary detainee facility at Saddam International Airport during the initial invasion. As the unit moved in, an enemy force of roughly 100 Iraqi soldiers attacked with mortars, automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

Smith ordered a soldier to put an armored personnel carrier between members of his unit and the enemy. Smith then manned the carrier’s .50-caliber machine gun and told a soldier who accompanied him to “feed me ammunition whenever you hear the gun get quiet,” according to his Medal of Honor citation. He fired through at least three boxes of ammunition from the exposed position until he was mortally wounded by enemy fire.

The citation said Smith’s actions saved the lives of at least 100 soldiers, while killing 20 to 50 enemy soldiers.

As for Marine recipients, while some have received the award in recent years for decades-old actions, the last time a Marine earned the Medal of Honor was in 1970. Lance Cpl. Miguel Keith received the award posthumously based on his actions on May 8, 1970, in Quang Ngai province.

Four other Marines were awarded for actions that year: Pfc. Raymond “Mike” Clausen for actions on Jan. 31; Gunnery Sgt. Allan Kellogg for actions on March 11; Lance Cpl. Emilio de la Garza, April 11; and Lance Cpl. James Howe, May 6.

Two other Marines have reportedly been nominated for the Medal of Honor for heroism in Iraq. Sgt. Rafael Peralta, 25, with 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, died Nov. 15, 2004, during the second battle of Fallujah. His unit had been fighting insurgents in a house when he was mortally wounded. He then cradled a grenade to save other Marines in the room.

The other name mentioned has been Lance Cpl. Christopher Adlesperger, 20, with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, who died Dec. 9, 2004. One month earlier, Adlesperger, after taking fire from a house during the Fallujah battle, climbed to the top of the house, fired grenades through the roof, shot and killed insurgents as they ran out of the house and led the charge back into the house to make sure it was secure, according to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times.

Ellie