Navy SEAL Michael A. Monsoor~Medal of Honor
April 19, 2008
During Petty Officer Mike Monsoor’s funeral here in San Diego, as Mike’s coffin was being moved from the hearse to the grave site at Ft Rosecrans National Cemetery, SEALs were lined up on both sides of the pallbearers route forming a column of two’s with the coffin moving up the center.
As the Mike’s coffin passed, each SEAL, having removed his gold Trident from his uniform, slapped it down embedding the Trident in the wooden coffin; the slaps were audible from across the cemetery; by the time the coffin arrived grave side, it looked as though it had a gold inlay from all the Tridents pinned to it.
A t the reception afterwards, the SEALS were easily identified among the other military guests because they had a stack of valor ribbons with pin holes above where their Naval Special Warfare Device or Trident had been.
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CORONADO, Calif. - A Navy SEAL sacrificed his life to save his comrades by throwing himself on top of a grenade Iraqi insurgents tossed into their sniper hideout, fellow members of the elite force said.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor had been near the only door to the rooftop structure Sept. 29 when the grenade hit him in the chest and bounced to the floor, said four SEALs who spoke to The Associated Press this week on condition of anonymity because their work requires their identities to remain secret.
“He never took his eye off the grenade, his only movement was down toward it,” said a 28-year-old lieutenant who sustained shrapnel wounds to both legs that day. “He undo ubtedly saved mine and the other SEALs’ lives, and we owe him.”
Monsoor, a 25-year-old gunner, was killed in the explosion in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. He was only the second SEAL to die in Iraq since the war began.
Two SEALs next to Monsoor were injured; another who was 10 to 15 feet from the blast was unhurt. The four had been working with Iraqi soldiers providing sniper security while U.S. and Iraqi forces conducted missions in the area.
In an interview at the SEALs’ West Coast headquarters in Coronado, four members of the special force remembered “Mikey” as a loyal friend and a quiet, dedicated professional.
“He was just a fun-loving guy,” said a 26-year-old petty officer 2nd class who went through the grueling 29-week SEAL training with Monsoor. “Always got something funny to say, always got a little mischievous look on his face.”
Other SEALS described the Garden Grove, Calif., native as a modes t and humble man who drew strength from his family and his faith. His father and brother are former Marines, said a 31-year-old petty officer 2nd class.
Prior to his death, Monsoor had already demonstrated courage under fire. He has been posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his actions May 9 in Ramadi, when he and another SEAL pulled a team member shot in the leg to safety while bullets pinged off the ground around them.
Monsoor’s funeral was held Thursday at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego. He has also been submitted for an award for his actions the day he died.
The first Navy SEAL to die in Iraq was Petty Officer 2nd Class Marc A. Lee, 28, who was killed Aug. 2 in a firefight while on patrol against insurgents in Ramadi. Navy spokesman Lt. Taylor Clark said the low number of deaths among SEALs in Iraq is a testament to their training.
Sixteen SEALs have been killed in Afghanistan. Eleven of them died in June 2005 when a helicopter was shot down near the Pakistan border while ferrying reinforcements for troops pursuing al-Qaida militants.
There are about 2,300 of the elite fighters, based in Coronado and Little Creek, Va.
The Navy is trying to boost that number by 500 - a challenge considering more than 75 percent of candidates drop out of training, notorious for “Hell Week,” a five-day stint of continual drills by the ocean broken by only four hours sleep total. Monsoor made it through training on his second attempt.
========= Bush gives Medal of Honor to Navy SEAL
WASHINGTON - Navy SEAL Michael A. Monsoor had fast thinking to do when a live grenade came out of nowhere to bounce off his chest: Take the clear path to safety that he had but his comrades didn’t, try to toss it safely away, or throw himself on top of it.
With barely an instant’s hesitation on that Iraqi rooftop, Monsoor took the last course, sacrificing his life to save the men around him. For that, President Bush on Tuesday awarded him the Medal of Honor.
In an East Room ceremony, Bush presented the nation’s highest military honor to Monsoor’s still-grieving parents, Sally and George Monsoor. About 250 guests, including his sister and two brothers, fellow SEALS, other Medal winners, many friends and GOP Sen. John McCain and other members of Congress, looked on quietly.
“The Medal of Honor is awarded for an act of such courage that no one could rightly be expected to undertake it,” Bush said. “Yet those who knew Michael Monsoor were not surprised when he did.”
Bush has awarded the medals to 10 people during his presidency. Monsoor is only the third from the Iraq war, and Bush’s lip trembled and tears streamed down his cheeks as the official citation was read with the details of his bravery.
The emotional proceedings at t he White House came as the top U.S. general and diplomat in Iraq opened two days of testimony across town on Capitol Hill on the status of the war, which has killed more than 4,020 U.S. military personnel.
Gen. David Petraeus said security in Iraq is still too fragile to allow announcements of troop levels going below 140,000 before September. Bush is giving a speech on Thursday to announce whether he accepts Petraeus’ recommendation to suspend troop withdrawals for 45 days after the current round completes in July. He is expected to do so.
In brief remarks, Bush told the story of Monsoor’s service-oriented upbringing and determined youth.
Monsoor became a Navy SEAL, the military’s most elite fighting force, in 2004.
“His teammates liked to laugh about the way his shiny Corvette would leave everybody in the dust,” Bush said. “But deep down, they always knew Mike would never leave anybody behind when it coun ted.”
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 outcr opping 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. “Mr. and Mrs. Monsoor: America owes you a debt that can never be repaid,” Bush said. “This nation will always cherish the memory of your son.”
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