To give you some perspective on a item of news unfortunately overlooked in today's frenzy over the Red Sox victory, in the more than 140 years since the U.S. Congress ordained the establishment of our nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor, 3,463 medals have been awarded to 3,444 different people.
In that time, millions of men and women have served in our nation's armed forces. A tiny fraction of a percentage of these soldiers conducted themselves in combat in such a way that earned them our nation's most prestigious award.
Most Medal of Honor winners receive their awards posthumously; it is the very selflessness of their actions that earn them this award.
Today, President Bush bestowed the Medal of Honor on Navy SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy of Patchogue, NY. Twenty-nine years old at the time of his death in Afghanistan, Murphy is the fourth Navy SEAL to earn the award and the first since the Vietnam War.
Lt. Murphy's heroism is clearly and brutally described in Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and The Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10 by Marcus Luttrell. Here's how Luttrell, the sole survivor of a mission gone horribly wrong, describes his Team Leader (and his best friend):
"Then there was my best friend, Lieutenant Michael Patrick Murphy, an honors graduate from Penn State, a hockey player, accepted by several law schools before he turned the rudder hard over and changes course for the United States Navy. Mikey was an inveterate reader. His favorite book was Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire, the story of the immortal stand of the Spartans at Thermopylae.
"He was the finest officer I have ever met, a natural leader, a really terrific SEAL who never, ever bossed anyone around... He simply would not tolerate any other high-ranking officer, commissioned or noncommissioned, reaming out one of his guys.
"He insisted the buck stopped with him. He always took the hit himself. If a reprimand was due, he accepted the blame."
Slowly, painfully, Luttrell's book takes readers through rigorous SEAL training, on missions in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, and then deep into the Hindu Kush mountains on "Operation Redwing," a mission to find and apprehend a particularly vicious Al Queada terrorist. Luttrell's book is a riveting must read for anyone who wants to better understand the training and mentality of our nation's finest and most potent warriors.
Coming from a guy who went to Ranger School, these guys are truly our nation's warrior elite.
Luttrell relates in his book how not killing a few Afghan goat herders who stumbled upon his team's overwatch position set in motion the tragic sequence of events that led to Murphy's death.
The firefight went on for two hours or so, a running gun battle between four SEALs and some 200 well-trained Al Queada operatives. Two of the team members were shot and slowly bled to death; though shot in the stomach early in the battle, Murphy maintained leadership over the team as they gradually got boxed in by a numerically superior force.
Surrounded by enemy fighters, in a hail of AK-47 bullets, with dwindling ammunition and badly wounded, here is how Luttrell relates what Murphy did to earn--at the cost of his life--the Medal of Honor:
"... He groped in his pocket for his mobile phone, the one we had dared not use because it would betray our position. And then Lieutenant Murphy walked out into the open ground. He walked until he was more or less in the center, gunfire all around him, and he sat on a small rock and began punching in the numbers to HQ.
"I could hear him talking. 'My men are taking heavy fire... we're getting picked apart. My guys are dying our here... we need help.'
"And right then Mikey took a bullet straight in the back. I saw the blood spurt from his chest. He slumped forward, dropping his phone and his rifle. But then he braced himself, grabbed them both, sat upright again and once more put the phone to his ear.
"I heard hims speak again. 'Roger that, sir. Thank you.' Then he stood up and staggered to our bad position, the guarding our left, and Mikey just started fighting again, firing at the enemy.
"Only I knew what Mikey had done. He'd understood we had only one realistic chance, and that was to call in help. He also knew there was only one place from which he could possibly make that cell phone work: out in the open, away from the cliff walls.
"Knowing the risk, understanding the danger, in the full knowledge the phone call could cost him his life, Lieutenant Michael Patrick Murphy walked out into the firestorm.
"... The final, utterly heroic act. Not a gesture. An act of supreme valor. Lieutenant Mikey was a wonderful person and very, very great SAL officer. If they build a memorial to him as high as the Empire State Building, it won't be high enough for me."
Here is part of Lt. Murphy's award citation:
Demonstrating exceptional resolve, Lieutenant Murphy valiantly led his men in engaging the large enemy force. The ensuing fierce firefight resulted in numerous enemy casualties, as well as the wounding of all four members of his team. Ignoring his own wounds and demonstrating exceptional composure, Lieutenant Murphy continued to lead and encourage his men. When the primary communicator fell mortally wounded, Lieutenant Murphy repeatedly attempted to call for assistance for his beleaguered teammates. Realizing the impossibility of communicating in the extreme terrain and in the face of almost certain death, he fought his way into an open terrain to gain a better position to transmit a call. This deliberate heroic act deprived him of cover, exposing him to direct enemy fire. Finally achieving contact with his headquarters, Lieutenant Murphy maintained his exposed position while he provided his location and requested immediate support for his team.
In his final act of bravery, he continued to engage the enemy until he was mortally wounded, gallantly giving his life for his country and for the cause of freedom.
Thank you, Lt. Murphy, for your service and sacrifice.
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