By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Three months after former Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta denied him the Medal of Honor, Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta's congressional backers have started a new effort to have him awarded the nation's top military honor.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Thursday that he denied the Medal of Honor to Sgt. Rafael Peralta because the evidence from his autopsy created more than a reasonable doubt that he was able to knowingly scoop a grenade beneath him — the act his fellow Marines said saved their lives.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has denied the request to give Sgt. Rafael Peralta the Medal of Honor, saying there are still too many questions to accept that he knowingly scooped a grenade beneath himself to absorb its blast and save his fellow Marines.
U.S. combat troops are gone from Iraq, but for some of the Marines who lived through it, there's one more fight to win: making sure one of the fallen, Sgt. Rafael Peralta, is awarded the Medal of Honor.
It's been 11 years since Sept. 11, 2001, and America has faced down enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan and stayed on offense in other pockets of the globe where terrorist organizations have attempted to regenerate.
A Marine combat veteran who now serves on the House Armed Services Committee said Monday that in at least two recent cases, the system for evaluating Medal of Honor nominations has gone awry, and he blamed bureaucratic infighting for keeping one of the men from a fair appraisal.
U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peralta was a hero who was denied full recognition for his acts of valor. This injustice should be reversed.
For the war in Iraq, four Medals of Honor have been awarded for extraordinary acts of combat heroism. Of those four awards, all of which were posthumous, three were for action that involved smothering a grenade to save others - action consistently recognized by the Medal of Honor.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, criticized by Congress and veterans for some of his untraditional ship-namings, took the old-school route on Wednesday by naming three destroyers after war heroes.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, under fire from Congress and veterans for naming ships after fellow Democrats and social activists, plans to announce another round of ship names in the near future that will be more traditional, a Pentagon official tells The Washington Times.
Peralta was under consideration for the Medal of Honor four years ago, but the Pentagon questioned the reliability of eyewitnesses, who said Peralta scooped the grenade under him but disagreed about details such as which hand he used.
His video included the platoon dragging Peralta out of the house, and he said the injuries visible on his body back up the Marines' accounts.
