The entire article can be found at the link below. I certainly got tear or 10 when I read it. A very close friend of mine has a daughter in the Marines and she may be going over to Iraq soon.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7010100759.html
"Grenade!"
Manning a .50-caliber machine gun in the turret of a Humvee, Pfc. Ross McGinnis could see the insurgent on a rooftop fling a hand grenade at his vehicle. He shouted and tried to deflect it, but it fell inside. Four of his buddies were down there.
What followed was a stunning act of self-sacrifice. McGinnis, a 19-year-old from rural Pennsylvania and the youngest soldier in his unit, threw himself backward onto the grenade, absorbing the blast with his body. He was killed instantly. The others escaped serious injury.
In the Humvee in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district that afternoon, Sgt. 1st Class Cedric Thomas, the platoon sergeant, heard Ross McGinnis's warning and shouted back: "Where?"
"The grenade is in the truck," McGinnis yelled. Then he ducked down and backward, pinning the device between his body and the radio mount just before it went off.
"He had time to jump out of the truck. He chose not to," Thomas said, according to official military accounts of the incident. McGinnis's action saved Thomas and three other soldiers from "certain serious injury or death."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7010100759.html
"Grenade!"
Manning a .50-caliber machine gun in the turret of a Humvee, Pfc. Ross McGinnis could see the insurgent on a rooftop fling a hand grenade at his vehicle. He shouted and tried to deflect it, but it fell inside. Four of his buddies were down there.
What followed was a stunning act of self-sacrifice. McGinnis, a 19-year-old from rural Pennsylvania and the youngest soldier in his unit, threw himself backward onto the grenade, absorbing the blast with his body. He was killed instantly. The others escaped serious injury.
In the Humvee in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district that afternoon, Sgt. 1st Class Cedric Thomas, the platoon sergeant, heard Ross McGinnis's warning and shouted back: "Where?"
"The grenade is in the truck," McGinnis yelled. Then he ducked down and backward, pinning the device between his body and the radio mount just before it went off.
"He had time to jump out of the truck. He chose not to," Thomas said, according to official military accounts of the incident. McGinnis's action saved Thomas and three other soldiers from "certain serious injury or death."
