Wednesday, April 09, 2008
No Greater Love
Rest in Peace, Michael Monsoor.
By spring 2006, Monsoor was deployed to Ramadi in Iraq's dangerous, then-al-Qaida dominated Anbar Province, as an automatic weapons gunner and communications operator — a double assignment that often landed him more than 100 pounds of gear to carry in the hot desert.
In May, Monsoor ran through heavy enemy fire to pull a wounded SEAL to safety. He earned a Silver Star, the third-highest award for combat valor, for that action.
It was only four months later, on Sept. 29, 2006, that Monsoor and his two American teammates, plus members of the Iraqi Army, were on a rooftop in a Ramadi residential area known as a stronghold for the Sunni insurgency. They were providing early warning and sniper cover for a mission aimed at trying to clear the neighborhood.
After a long day of back-and-forth engagement and evidence that the enemy was closing them off, Monsoor and the two other SEALS moved to a confined outcropping of the roof for a better lookout position. An unseen insurgent lobbed a grenade, which hit Monsoor in the chest and landed on the floor in front of him. He yelled a warning, but quickly saw that his fellow SEALS, not positioned near the exit like he was, wouldn't be able to get clear in time. Monsoor fell onto the grenade just as it exploded, absorbing the blast with his body and dying from the injuries about 30 minutes later. Others suffered shrapnel wounds, but no one else was killed.
The Garden Grove, Calif., native, was only 25 years old.
Labels: heros, Iraq, soldiers' issues
Friday, October 12, 2007
Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor has been awarded to Lt. Michael Murphy, USN.
Labels: Afghanistan, heros, soldiers' issues
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Cpl. Jason Dunham to have a ship named after him
UPDATE: A reader suggests changing the parameters of my NY Times archive search to James L. Dunham. Still drawing a blank, but the New York Times did do a story on Cpl Jason L. Dunham (had to add the "L.")
No, it didn't make the A section. It ran on page 3 of the B section, nearly three years after his heroic sacrifice and death. He did get 1,878 words, though.
Corporal Jason Dunham, the first Marine to have recieved the Medal of Honor for service in Iraq, will have a destroyer named after him.
The New York Times never wrote a story on him.
Then again, the Times doesn't know what the Medal of Honor is.
Oh, and then there's this:
And this, too.
And this.
Nor does the Times know what a Marine is.
Splash, out
Jason
No, it didn't make the A section. It ran on page 3 of the B section, nearly three years after his heroic sacrifice and death. He did get 1,878 words, though.
Corporal Jason Dunham, the first Marine to have recieved the Medal of Honor for service in Iraq, will have a destroyer named after him.
The New York Times never wrote a story on him.
Then again, the Times doesn't know what the Medal of Honor is.
An article in The Arts yesterday about Tavis Smiley, the television and radio host and author, omitted the co-author of his new memoir, ''What I Know for Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America,'' in some copies. He is David Ritz. The article also misidentified the Congressional award given to Rosa Parks, for which Mr. Smiley campaigned with Tom Joyner, a radio host on whose show Mr. Smiley appears as a commentator. It was the Congressional Gold Medal -- not the Medal of Honor, given for military service.
Oh, and then there's this:
An Op-Ed article last Sunday about the Plaza Hotel misstated details about an award given to the songwriter George M. Cohan. He won the Congressional Gold Medal, an award also given to other songwriters. He did not win the Congressional Medal of Honor.
And this, too.
And this.
Nor does the Times know what a Marine is.
Splash, out
Jason
Labels: heros, Media, New York Times
