Obscured by the ideological fog of war is a basic fact:
Every day ordinary young Americans are fighting and dying in Iraq, with the same bravery, honor, and sense of duty that have distinguished the best American soldiers throughout history. One of these was Jason Dunham, a Marine corporal from the one-stoplight town of Scio, New York, whose stunning story reporter Michael M. Phillips discovered while he was embedded with a Marine infantry battalion in the Iraqi desert.
Corporal Dunham was on patrol in the town of Husaybah, near the Syrian border, on April 14, 2004 when a black-clad Iraqi leaped out of a car and grabbed him around his neck. Fighting hand-to-hand in the dirt, Dunham saw his attacker drop a grenade and made the instantaneous decision to place his own helmet over the explosive in the hope of containing the blast and protecting the men beside him. When the smoke cleared, Dunham was laying facedown in his own blood, shrapnel embedded in his brain, and his Kevlar helmet was shredded. The Marines next to him were seriously wounded, but alive. Dunham became the first soldier in Iraq nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for military valor.
If the president approves it, Dunham’s act of courage will be the first to merit the Medal of Honor in eleven years.Phillips’s minute-by-minute chronicle of the chaotic fighting that raged throughout Husaybah and culminated in Dunham’s injury provides a grunt’s-eye view of war as it’s being fought today—fear, confusion, bravery, and suffering set against a brotherhood forged in combat. His account of Dunham’s eight-day struggle to make it home alive and of his parents’ decision to remove their son from life support vividly illustrates the cold brutality of war and the fragile humanity of those who fight it.Michael M. Phillips first told Dunham’s story on the front page ofThe Wall Street Journal
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