Since the first military burial on May 13, 1864, Arlington National Cemetery has become the final resting place for more than 400,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and their families. Those who on Sept. 11, 2001, died only a few hundred yards away at the Pentagon are buried here, as are the Challenger astronauts. Fifteen thousand soldiers from the Civil War — Union and Confederate — rest in Section 27 and Section 13, known as the Field of the Dead. Four thousand freed slaves, many identified only as “Citizen,” and two presidents also are buried at Arlington. Section 60 is the…
Browsing: Medal of Honor
A fallen corporal who is one of two members of the Corps to receive the Medal of Honor for heroism in Iraq and Afghanistan, will have a building named in his honor aboard the base where Marines conduct their predeployment training. A ceremony for the dedication of the Cpl. Jason L. Dunham Hall will be held on Feb. 18, at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif., according to a news release. “The Combat Center dedicates this facility to one of its own Marines, who paid the ultimate sacrifice, saving the lives of his fellow Marines, while deployed…
A petition posted on the White House website asks the president to award the nation’s highest award for valor to two fallen Marines who in 2008 stopped a truck laden with explosives from barreling through the checkpoint they were guarding in Iraq,saving dozens of lives. But those who want to sign on must act quickly. The deadline is Sunday. Cpl. Jonathan Yale, a rifleman with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, and Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, another rifleman with 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, were awarded the Navy Cross posthumously in February 2009. But the petition asks President Obama to upgrade the awards…
Former Army Capt. Will Swenson will receive the Medal of Honor on Oct. 15, more than four years after he and other U.S. forces tried desperately to find and save three Marines and a Navy corpsman who were trapped under heavy fire in the infamous Battle of Ganjgal in Afghanistan. Those troops didn’t make it out of the Sept. 8, 2009, ambush alive, but Swenson has not forgotten them. He invited the families of Marine 1st Lt. Michael Johnson, Gunnery Sgt. Edwin Johnson, Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick and Navy Hospitalman 3rd Class James Layton to his White House ceremony, said…
In recent weeks, Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer has forcefully advocated for the U.S. to allow his former Afghan interpreter into the U.S., saying the man feared for his life after getting death threats from the Taliban. Fayez, shown at right with Meyer, is now in the U.S. The Marine posted the photograph on Twitter on Friday, adding a note that showed relief. “Back together finally,” Meyer said. “Fazel is in America.” Fazel — known in a lot of previous media coverage as Hafez to protect his identify — was in the Ganjgal Valley in eastern Afghanistan on Sept.…
Army Staff Sgt. Ty Carter received the Medal of Honor this afternoon, a fitting tribute to a man who repeatedly braved enemy fire in Afghanistan while defending Combat Outpost Keating from a fierce Taliban attack in 2009. Before serving in the Army, however, Carter served as a Marine — and overcame a significant family tragedy. According to Carter’s hometown newspaper in Spokane, Wash., the newest Medal of Honor recipient’s brother was killed by a drunken friend playing with a shotgun at a party in 2000. Carter was a 20-year-old Marine serving in Okinawa, Japan, at the time: The brothers grew…
With a deadly firefight raging, five men hopped into a Humvee and rode toward a small mountainside village in Afghanistan looking for a four-man team of U.S. forces that had gone missing in combat. The possibility that all five men wouldn’t make it out of the village of Ganjgal, in Kunar province, was high. Already, multiple Afghan troops the Americans were training had been cut down by machine-gun fire in a fierce ambush that was launched about dawn on Sept. 8, 2009. U.S. Army officers at nearby Forward Operating Base Joyce had declined to send air support in a timely…
When in doubt, expect a child to steal the show. That eternal truth was on display again Monday at the White House, as the son of former Army Staff Sgt. Clinton Romesha wandered on stage before his father’s Medal of Honor ceremony. The Associated Press video here captures it best: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpUPuE1Kg4E&feature=youtu.be[/youtube] You’ve got to love the Marine captain ushering little Colin off the stage without incident. For more coverage of today’s ceremony, check out Army Times’ story.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus reinforced the Navy Department’s longstanding support for fallen Sgt. Rafael Peralta receiving the Medal of Honor on Monday, creating a wave of news coverage as defense officials review new evidence in the case. The decision to give Peralta the nation’s top valor award rests with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Mabus told reporters after a ceremony at Camp Pendleton, Calif., where three Marines and a sailor were honored for heroism in Afghanistan in 2010. Mabus’ support for Peralta receiving the Medal of Honor has been consistent, he said. The comments come more than eight years after Peralta,…
It has been more than a year since President Obama draped the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest valor award, around the neck of Dakota Meyer. Today, the Marine’s own account of the Sept. 8, 2009, ambush in Ganjgal, Afghanistan, that led to the award hits shelves in bookstores. “Into the Fire,” written with the help of author Bing West, recounts the botched mission in which he and several other U.S. service members risked life and limb in an attempt to recover the bodies of four fellow members of an embedded training team that had gone missing in a maelstrom…
