Marine to Receive Medal of Honor for Iraq Heroism

[onedomino]

Rest in peace, Jason Dunham. Without people like you there would be no America.

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.

Rest of article: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/10/medal.honor/

 

[Annie]

Lots more at this site and the links:

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2006/11/jason_dunham_to.html

Jason Dunham to receive the medal
Posted By Blackfive

Jay B. sends this link to CNN's report that Marine Corporal Jason Dunham will be awarded thr Medal of Honor.

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...

I Love Jet Noise has the best articles about Jason.

Jason was one of the heroes that "The Blog of War" was dedicated to...and he was "the dying Marine" in LCDR Heidi Kraft wrote about in "The List":

...Things That Were Not Good

...Ushering a sobbing Marine Colonel away from the trauma bay while several of his Marines bled and cried out in pain inside
Meeting that 21-year-old Marine with three Purple Hearts...and listening to him weep because he felt ashamed of being afraid to go back
Telling a room full of stunned Marines in blood-soaked uniforms that their comrade, that they had tried to save, had just died of his wounds
Trying, as if in total futility, to do anything I could, to ease the trauma of group after group...that suffered loss after loss, grief after inconsolable grief...

Washing blood off the boots of one of our young nurses while she told me about the one who bled out in the trauma bay...and then the one who she had to tell, when he pleaded for the truth, that his best friend didn't make it...
Listening to another of our nurses tell of the Marine who came in talking, telling her his name...about how she pleaded with him not to give up, told him that she was there for him...about how she could see his eyes go dull when he couldn't fight any longer...

And last, but not least...
Holding the hand of that dying Marine.
​

It is important to note that the Marine Corps birthday is today...and that Jason would have turned 25 today, too.

Posted by Blackfive on November 10, 2006

 

[Annie]

Where do they come from? I just know we are blessed:

http://joatmoaf.typepad.com/i_love_jet_noise/files/corporal_dunham.html

May 25, 2004
No Words

I've been trying to decide what to say about this all morning, but on reflection I think this says it all:

Lance Cpl. Dean told those assembled about a trip to Las Vegas the two men and Becky Jo Dean had taken in January, not long before the battalion left for the Persian Gulf. Chatting in a hotel room, the corporal told his friends he was planning to extend his enlistment and stay in Iraq for the battalion's entire tour. "You're crazy for extending," Lance Cpl. Dean recalls saying. "Why?"

He says Cpl. Dunham responded: "I want to make sure everyone makes it home alive. I want to be sure you go home to your wife alive."
​

Mission accomplished, Corporal Dunham. Semper Fidelis.

By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
May 25, 2004

AL QA'IM, Iraq -- Early this spring, Cpl. Jason Dunham and two other Marines sat in an outpost in Iraq and traded theories on surviving a hand-grenade attack.

Second Lt. Brian "Bull" Robinson suggested that if a Marine lay face down on the grenade and held it between his forearms, the ceramic bulletproof plate in his flak vest might be strong enough to protect his vital organs. His arms would shatter, but he might live.

Cpl. Dunham had another idea: A Marine's Kevlar helmet held over the grenade might contain the blast. "I'll bet a Kevlar would stop it," he said, according to Second Lt. Robinson.

"No, it'll still mess you up," Staff Sgt. John Ferguson recalls saying.


It was a conversation the men would remember vividly a few weeks later, when they saw the shredded remains of Cpl. Dunham's helmet, apparently blown apart from the inside by a grenade. Fellow Marines believe Cpl. Dunham's actions saved the lives of two men and have recommended him for the Medal of Honor, an award that no act of heroism since 1993 has garnered.

A 6-foot-1 star high-school athlete from Scio, N.Y., Cpl. Dunham was chosen to become a squad leader shortly after he was assigned to Kilo Company, Third Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment in September 2003. Just 22 years old, he showed "the kind of leadership where you're confident in your abilities and don't have to yell about it," says Staff Sgt. Ferguson, 30, of Aurora, Colo. Cpl. Dunham's reputation grew when he extended his enlistment, due to end in July, so he could stay with his squad throughout its tour in the war zone.

During the invasion of Iraq last year, the Third Battalion didn't suffer any combat casualties. But since March, 10 of its 900 Marines have died from hostile fire, and 89 have been wounded.

April 14 was an especially bad day. Cpl. Dunham was in the town of Karabilah, leading a 14-man foot patrol to scout sites for a new base, when radio reports came pouring in about a roadside bomb hitting another group of Marines not far away.

Insurgents, the reports said, had ambushed a convoy that included the battalion commander, 40-year-old Lt. Col. Matthew Lopez, of Chicago. One rifle shot penetrated the rear of the commander's Humvee, hitting him in the back, Lt. Col. Lopez says. His translator and bodyguard, Lance Cpl. Akram Falah, 23, of Anaheim, Calif., had taken a bullet to the bicep, severing an artery, according to medical reports filed later.

Cpl. Dunham's patrol jumped aboard some Humvees and raced toward the convoy. Near the double-arched gateway of the town of Husaybah, they heard the distinctive whizzing sound of a rocket-propelled grenade overhead. They left their vehicles and split into two teams to hunt for the shooters, according to interviews with two men who were there and written reports from two others.

Around 12:15 p.m., Cpl. Dunham's team came to an intersection and saw a line of seven Iraqi vehicles along a dirt alleyway, according to Staff Sgt. Ferguson and others there. At Staff Sgt. Ferguson's instruction, they started checking the vehicles for weapons.

Cpl. Dunham approached a run-down white Toyota Land Cruiser. The driver, an Iraqi in a black track suit and loafers, immediately lunged out and grabbed the corporal by the throat, according to men at the scene. Cpl. Dunham kneed the man in the chest, and the two tumbled to the ground.

Two other Marines rushed to the scene. Private First Class Kelly Miller, 21, of Eureka, Calif., ran from the passenger side of the vehicle and put a choke hold around the man's neck. But the Iraqi continued to struggle, according to a military report Pfc. Miller gave later. Lance Cpl. William B. Hampton, 22, of Woodinville, Wash., also ran to help.

A few yards away, Lance Cpl. Jason Sanders, 21, a radio operator from McAlester, Okla., says he heard Cpl. Dunham yell a warning: "No, no, no -- watch his hand!"

What was in the Iraqi's hand appears to have been a British-made "Mills Bomb" hand grenade. The Marines later found an unexploded Mills Bomb in the Toyota, along with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled-grenade launchers.


A Mills Bomb user pulls a ring pin out and squeezes the external lever -- called the spoon -- until he's ready to throw it. Then he releases the spoon, leaving the bomb armed. Typically, three to five seconds elapse between the time the spoon detaches and the grenade explodes. The Marines later found what they believe to have been the grenade's pin on the floor of the Toyota, suggesting that the Iraqi had the grenade in his hand -- on a hair trigger -- even as he wrestled with Cpl. Dunham.

None of the other Marines saw exactly what Cpl. Dunham did, or even saw the grenade. But they believe Cpl. Dunham spotted the grenade -- prompting his warning cry -- and, when it rolled loose, placed his helmet and body on top of it to protect his squadmates.

The scraps of Kevlar found later, scattered across the street, supported their conclusion. The grenade, they think, must have been inside the helmet when it exploded. His fellow Marines believe that Cpl. Dunham made an instantaneous decision to try out his theory that a helmet might blunt the grenade blast....Lots more

 

[Annie]

As long as America has a president like Bush there will always be dead marines.

As long as America stands for freedom, there will be those that attack and the need to defend.

Which is why you get dinged.

 

[Annie]

When did Iraq attack America?

You can ding me all the way back to zero but it won't change the facts Lady, Americans are dieing for all the wrong reasons, your country has spoken yet you are still fucking deaf or is ignorant?

Yes the Marine is a hero, he died saving fellow marines, not fucking America.

Grow up will you?

You are right about the people he died for. What you seem incapable of understanding is what our military fights for-and that is our freedoms and threats against it.

As for Hussein, he tried to assassinate our President, he broke the cease fire, etc. for the umpteenth time.

Why don't you give your brain time to heal?

 

[onedomino]

When did Iraq attack America?

You can ding me all the way back to zero but it won't change the facts Lady, Americans are dieing for all the wrong reasons, your country has spoken yet you are still fucking deaf or is ignorant?

Yes the Marine is a hero, he died saving fellow marines, not fucking America.

Grow up will you?

No one can ding you back to zero, you already are a zero.

 

[Annie]

You lot lost the midterms on the back of the lies you went to war for, please don't tell me you still believe them, you are a laughing stock, get over yourself, I have.LOL.

Take a shovel and a pick to Iraq, maybe you can find those hidden WMD's.LOL.

Your military fights for fucking wages and medical insurance, they are a professional army just like ours.Fuck Queen and country and fuck America, they know why they are fighting, it is their job and it helps to keep you alive in the fucking war zone.

There are reasons for war, don't fucking compound the lie Kathianne.

Am I to be dinged again or banned?

Fuck you.

Banned for the last sentence. Take 24.

 

[Annie]

I'm removing roomy's disrepectful posts. They are not appropriate on a thread about a Medal of Honor recipient.

He's been banned for 24, considering he's just returned that may be too lenient?