Honorable Americans, every one

Michael Monsoor, of Garden Grove, Calif., felt the same call to serve his country that had led his father and brother into the Marine Corps. However, he was pulled in a different direction than his family members: He was drawn to the Navy, not out of a desire to serve in the fleet, but out of a burning ambition to serve as a Navy SEAL, one of America’s Special Operations elites.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Monsoor succeeded at SEAL training and was assigned to Coronado, Calif. It was in Iraq, though, as he fought alongside his teammates, that he repeatedly demonstrated the bravery and heroism that are characteristic of America’s fighting men and women. It was in that same country, on Sept. 29, that the 25-year-old gave his life to protect them.

According to the Navy’s narrative: “On 29 Sept., Petty Officer Monsoor was part of a sniper overwatch security position in eastern Ramadi, Iraq, with three other SEALs and eight Iraqi soldiers… Ramadi had been a violent and intense area for a very strong and aggressive insurgency for some time…

“An insurgency fighter… threw a fragment grenade into the overwatch position which hit Petty Officer Monsoor in the chest before falling in front of him. Petty Officer Monsoor yelled “Grenade!” and dropped on top of the grenade prior to it exploding. Petty Officer Monsoor’s body shielded the others from the brunt of the fragmentation blast and two other SEALs were only wounded by the remaining blast.”

The most important part of the incident to understand, in order to appreciate the magnitude of Michael Monsoor’s sacrifice, is this: Due to the orientation of the room, and the location of its lone exit, he was the only person who could have escaped.

Doing so, though, would have meant abandoning the others in the room to grievous injury or, more likely, to death. Knowing both courses of action, and the consequences of each, he had to make a split-second decision.

As was so eloquently and succinctly put by the Chicago Tribune’s Kristen Scharnberg, “The men who were there that day say they could see the options flicker across Michael Monsoor’s face: save himself or save the men he had long considered brothers.

“He chose them.”

In April 2004, 24-year-old Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham made a similar sacrifice, as he used his body to shield fellow Marines from an exploding grenade. His father described his son’s decision to give his life for his comrades thus: “When you are in a war situation, that guy beside you is your brother or sister. And I think that most of us would give up our lives for our family.”

More than two years later, Cpl. Dunham was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his selfless, heroic sacrifice. Now, three months after he gave his life for his teammates, Navy SEAL Monsoor has been nominated for a Medal of Honor of his own.

Most recently, 19-year-old Pfc. Ross McGinnis saved the lives of four of his comrades in similar fashion. On Dec. 4, when manning a turret-mounted machine gun, a grenade was thrown into Pfc. McGinnis’s Humvee. Rather than escape through the vehicle’s turret, he threw himself into the truck and on top of the grenade, absorbing the blast.

“He was that kind of person,” a fellow infantryman said of Pfc. McGinnis. “He would rather take it himself than have his buddies go down.” Pfc. McGinnis was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, and a Medal of Honor could — and likely should — be in the offing for him as well.

The mindset that compels a man to put himself into harm’s way for the purpose of saving another is difficult to describe; however, it is a defining characteristic of the true warrior who has faced combat, and who has experienced the reality of having his life entirely in the hands of the men next to him, while having each of those in his own hands.

According to Joseph Blake, a sociologist who has researched the act of soldiers throwing themselves on grenades, “A combat situation has not a whole lot to do with patriotism or the folks back home… They are fighting for their buddies. They don’t want to let their buddies down.”

Said Petty Officer Monsoor’s mother, “We just knew that if Mike was put in a situation like he was, he wouldn’t hesitate.”

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