Medal of Honor

President Bush presents the Medal of Honor today to the family of Sergeant 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, killed in Iraq exactly two years ago. This is the first MOH since 1993 (Somalia) and only the third since Vietnam (although according to Denzel Washington movies, both Meg Ryan and Liev Schreiber received the MOH during Desert Storm). SFC Smith receives the Medal of Honor posthumously, as did the two Delta Force commandoes in Somalia.

To my knowledge there are at least three other candidates for the medal, of which only one is still alive. All three were marines in Iraq. All three protected fellow marines from grenades.

• Corporal Jason Dunham, covered a grenade with his helmet and died nine days later, saving the lives of his friends.
• Sergeant Rafael Peralta was shot and wounded while fighting house to house in Fallujah but he was still able to cover an enemy grenade with his own body. He died to save several other Marines' lives.
• First Sergeant Brad Kasal was also fighting in Fallujah when, lying wounded on the floor of a building full of terrorists, he shielded a fellow marine from a grenade with his own body. Kasal was also shot 7 times. He suffered some thirty to forty wounds, fought off his attackers for over half an hour by himself and saved the other Marine's life and still survived. Here's a picture of 1stSgt Kasal after he was wounded.