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…
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The White House announced on Monday that former Army Capt. Will Swenson will receive the Medal of Honor on Oct. 15, four years after he braved enemy fire repeatedly while leading U.S. forces through a horrific ambush that erupted in eastern Afghanistan. The Battle of Ganjgal on Sept. 8, 2009, is especially well known because Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer already received the nation’s top award for valor that day. Until tonight, however, few had seen a gritty war-zone video of Swenson on the battlefield during it. A sergeant in the Army National Guard recorded it while working that day on…
A 72-year-old was awarded the Bronze Star with combat “V” for heroic achievements during the Vietnam War. Retired Staff Sgt. David Nugent was presented with his award Aug. 26 aboard Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass. The former section leader with Mortar Platoon, Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines, was surrounded by more than 100 family members and friends, according to an Air Force news release. “I am grateful that I was able to receive this now so my children, grandchildren, brothers and their children can see this ceremony,” Nugent said during the ceremony. “By seeing it, I hope…
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…
Lance Cpl. Joel Murray was aboard Forward Operating Base Shir Ghazi in Afghanistan on May 13 when a truck laden with explosives detonated outside. Three Georgian soldiers were mortally wounded, and several other Georgians and U.S. Marines sustained injuries. Murray, an engineer equipment operator with Combat Logistics Regiment 2, quickly rushed to the site of the blast, Marine officials said. Insurgents were attempting to penetrate the security perimeter of the base, in Helmand province’s Musa Qala district. Murray killed an enemy fighter, and then applied a tourniquet to a Georgian soldier who had sustained a life-threatening leg injury, according to…
A wounded warrior who was awarded the nation’s third highest honor for valor last week is the same injured Marine Delta Airlines issued a public apology to in December after staff members embarrassed him on a flight. Cpl. Christian Brown, a former squad leader with 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, was awarded the Silver Star aboard Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Friday. He is credited with heroic actions during the unit’s 2011 deployment to Afghanistan. On Dec. 7, Brown responded when a designated marksman was critically wounded in the head, calling in a medevac and leading his squad to where it was safe for…
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…
