California SEAL To Receive Posthumous Medal Of Honor For Ramadi Action - With Video
Marine Corps Times:
SAN DIEGO — A California-based SEAL who threw his body on a grenade to save his comrades in Iraq will posthumously receive the Medal of Honor, a Defense Department official has confirmed.
Master-at-Arms 2nd Class (SEAL) Michael A. Monsoor, of Garden Grove, Calif., was holed up on the roof of a Ramadi house with three other SEALs on Sept. 29, 2006, when an insurgent grenade landed nearby.
Monsoor, a 25-year old with SEAL Team 3, grabbed the grenade and clutched it to his chest. The blast killed him, but his actions, officials said at the time, saved the men on the rooftop.
Monsoor will be the second member of the Navy to receive the Medal of Honor since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, and the first sailor to receive it for combat in Iraq.
Michael Fumento, who’s written about Monsoor and combat operations in Ramadi, reported on his Internet blog over the weekend that Monsoor’s family would receive the posthumous award on the fallen SEAL’s behalf during a White House ceremony April 8.
A Defense Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the award had been approved.
“We understand the decision has been made to give that award,” the official said Monday. However, it’s not clear when the medal would be presented by President Bush, as is tradition, and the White House hasn’t yet made any announcement.
“[The date is] very likely to change,” the Pentagon official said.
A spokeswoman at the Navy Office of Information referred questions to the White House. A call to the White House press office was not immediately returned.
Monsoor, a platoon machine gunner, had received the Silver Star, the third-highest award for combat valor, for his actions pulling a wounded SEAL to safety during a May 9, 2006, firefight in Ramadi.
The Medal of Honor would be the second awarded to a Navy SEAL since 2001.
Last year, the family of the late Lt. Michael P. Murphy, a SEAL officer from Long Island, N.Y., received the medal during an Oct. 22 White House ceremony. Murphy was killed June 28, 2005, along with two other teammates, in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains when their four-man team battled a larger force of Taliban fighters. Eight other Navy SEALs and eight special operations soldiers with a quick-reaction force died when their MH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down.
Murphy is the only service member so far awarded the Medal of Honor for combat operations in Afghanistan.
Only two other Medals of Honor have been awarded, so far, and both posthumously for combat heroics during military operations in Iraq.
The first was Army Sergeant 1st Class Paul R. Smith, who died during an April 4, 2003, firefight with insurgent fighters near Baghdad International Airport. Smith was noted for his bravery and quick actions to organize a hasty defense and counter attack during which he fired anti-tank weapons, tossed hand grenades, mounted an armored personnel carrier to fire its .50-caliber machine gun and evacuate three wounded soldiers before he was felled by enemy fire. Officials credited him with killing as many as 50 enemy forces.
Monsoor’s actions closely parallel that of Marine Cpl. Jason L. Dunham, a machine gunner from Scio, N.Y., the second service member to receive the medal for combat actions in Iraq.
Dunham, 22, took his Kevlar helmet and muffled a grenade dropped by an insurgent fighting with him and his fire team in a house near Husaybah on April 14, 2004. He died a week later, April 22, at National Naval Medical Center Bethesda, Md. His family received the medal during a Jan. 11, 2007, ceremony at the White House.
Be respectful of others and their opinions. Inflammatory remarks and inane leftist drivel will be deleted. It ain’t about free speech, remember you’re in a private domain. My website, my prerogative.
If you can't handle using your real email address, don't bother posting a comment.
Well this is one of those bitter sweet deals…. on the one hand it’s great to see our men get the recognition they deserve, on the other, everyone involved would give it all back to have a son back, a teammate back and another invaluable gun in the fight…..
Hoo-Yah MaA2ndCLASS Monsoor……. RIP
March 17th, 2008 at 12:30 pmAbove and beyond. So much dedication to his team, chose to take the grenade and ultimately his own life rather than letting the grenade take all of their lives.
God has blessed all of us with people like that on this earth.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:36 pmThese are men at their MOST “beautiful” …
By instinct and the depths of their souls … Our guys “blow themselves up” in order to save others.
However, by instinct and by the depths of their dark souls … The enemy blow themselves up in order to kill as many as they can.
You tell me whose side “The One True G-d” is on?
March 17th, 2008 at 2:09 pmSelfless hero.
O Trinity of love and power!
Our brethren shield in danger’s hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them wheresoe’er they go;
Thus evermore shall rise to Thee
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.
-Navy Hymn-
March 17th, 2008 at 3:34 pmMy salute to you sir, for what you gave. My service pales in comparison to your sacrifice. You are a true American hero for which we so seriously lack in our country. You embody what we all desire our own children to be. Our country owes you a debt for what you gave. May God rest your soul, may he comfort your family in their grief and may he bless them for what you gave to your country. I pray we never let you down. Words fail to express my gratitude for your offering.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:50 pmHe lived on for a week, suffering, I’m sure — but at least he got to know that he’d succeeded in saving his mates. I suspect that given the choice of having that period of awareness and dying instantly, he’d have chosen the former.
March 17th, 2008 at 5:38 pmSorry, confused Monsoor and Durham.
March 17th, 2008 at 5:41 pmThat’s okay … They are all “fully aware” of the greatness by which they served and sacrificed …
I know where you were going.
March 17th, 2008 at 6:37 pmHe deserves it-thanks
March 22nd, 2008 at 3:01 am