Soldier who threw himself on grenade to save others is recognized
Pfc. Ross A. McGinnis, who died in Iraq saving four other men, receives a posthumous Medal of Honor.
WASHINGTON — If there's an opportunity to escape the deadly blast of a grenade, the Army trains soldiers to take it.
When an Iraqi insurgent threw a grenade inside the Humvee where Pfc. Ross A. McGinnis manned the machine gun, he had time to jump from the turret and save himself.
But he didn't. In a matter of seconds, with four comrades stuck inside, McGinnis yelled "grenade" into his microphone, dropped down the turret and used his back to smother the explosive.
On Monday, during a solemn White House ceremony, President Bush presented McGinnis' parents, Tom and Romayne, with a posthumous Medal of Honor for their son, who absorbed the grenade's impact and saved the lives of the other men.
"America will always honor the name of this brave soldier who gave all for his country and was taken to rest at age 19," Bush said. "No one outside this man's family can know the true weight of their loss."
Eighteen months later, memories of the incident remain seared in the souls of those whose lives McGinnis saved. In interviews, McGinnis' brothers-in-arms -- flown in from as far away as Germany -- choked up as they recounted the attack on their convoy on Dec. 4, 2006.
When the grenade -- thrown from a nearby rooftop -- landed in the Humvee, McGinnis shouted into his microphone to alert the men below. With that, truck commander Sgt. Cedric D. Thomas counted down.
"I was like '3-2-1.' Just like that," Thomas said. "The truck filled with black smoke."
"If [McGinnis] wouldn't have blocked it with his body, there's no doubt that nobody would have escaped it," said the Humvee's driver, Sgt. Lyle Buehler, who was wounded by shrapnel.
A month before, a similar situation occurred with another convoy. When a grenade landed inside a Humvee, the gunner jumped out, as he had been trained to do. The grenade turned out to be a dud.
"In the days that followed, McGinnis said he didn't know what he would do," Buehler said. "I felt the same way. It's hard to say what you'd do."
Now, Buehler said, he lives with a feeling of guilt every day.
"Anytime I have something good in my life, a family gathering or anything, I think about his family, how his family doesn't have that anymore," he said. "And he could have had that. And it hurts."
