Medal Of Honor

On the last day of his life, on a rooftop in Ramadi, Navy SEAL Michael A. Monsoor was assigned to protect three SEAL snipers. When an insurgent's grenade lobbed from the street bounced off Monsoor's chest, he didn't hesitate. He yelled "Grenade!" and pounced on it even though he had a clear path of escape. He was dead within 30 minutes, but he had saved the lives of three SEALs.

Tears glistening on his face, President Bush posthumously presented the Medal of Honor on Tuesday to a Navy SEAL from Garden Grove who saved the lives of American snipers in Iraq by throwing his body on top of an insurgent's grenade. Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor, 25, died during a firefight on Sept. 29, 2006, in an Al Qaeda-controlled section of Ramadi.

A Pomona man who once boasted of being awarded the Medal of Honor pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to lying about receiving the award, the nation's top military honor. A subdued Xavier Alvarez, 50, who sits on the board of directors for the Three Valleys Municipal Water District in Claremont, admitted to violating the Stolen Valor Act, a recently enacted federal law that makes it a crime for a person to falsely claim he or she was awarded medals for service in the U.S. armed forces.

President Bush awarded the Medal of Honor on Thursday to Marine Cpl. Jason L. Dunham, who on a dusty road in western Iraq in 2004 threw his Kevlar helmet and his body on an insurgent's grenade, saving the lives of two Marines while sacrificing his own. Established by a joint resolution of Congress during the Civil War and presented 3,462 times, the Medal of Honor is awarded for gallantry in the face of enemy attack that is beyond the call of duty.

One day after President Bush awarded the coveted Medal of Honor to the family of a Marine who died after throwing his helmet and his body on a grenade in Iraq, a California congressman introduced a bill to require the Pentagon to put more real gold in the medal. "For those very few soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines deemed worthy of our nation's highest military honor, surely we can afford more than a $30 medal," Rep. Joe Baca (D-Rialto) said.

Amid the sound of battle cries and machine-gun fire, the stories of the nation's war heroes are now being told in a renovated museum aboard a moored aircraft carrier. The refurbished $1.5-million Medal of Honor Museum is set to open this weekend aboard the aircraft carrier Yorktown in Charleston Harbor as a tribute to the 3,444 recipients of the nation's highest military honor.

CORONADO, Calif. -- On a morning that shared the sunshine but none of the violence of that long ago Dec. 7, family members of Jackson Charles Pharris were reunited Tuesday with the Medal of Honor he received for bravery at Pearl Harbor. Pharris died in Los Angeles in 1966, at 54. His wife and daughter died several years ago. The Medal of Honor and a Navy Cross he had received sat untouched in a safe-deposit box.

A Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan will be awarded the Medal of Honor, the first such award for troops serving in Afghanistan and the first for a SEAL since the war in Vietnam, the White House announced Thursday. Lt. Michael P. Murphy, 29, who had SEAL training here and was assigned to a SEAL team in Hawaii, was killed in June 2005 during a mission in the Hindu Kush mountains to find a key Taliban leader.

Xavier Alvarez, the newest director of Three Valleys Municipal Water District in Claremont, had a personal story so harrowing he came to be known as the "Rambo" of the water board. He said he was a 25-year veteran of the Marine Corps. In 1979, he rescued the U.S. ambassador during the siege of the embassy in Tehran. He was shot twice, hanging from a helicopter, removing the American flag on the way out.

In a somber, understated ceremony in the White House East Room, President Bush on Monday awarded the Medal of Honor to a Navy SEAL mortally wounded two years ago on a hillside in Afghanistan after he sent out an emergency call for reinforcements and continued firing at Taliban insurgents. The medal, given to Lt. Michael P. Murphy, 29, of Patch- ogue, N.Y., is the nation's highest military honor. This is the first one the president has bestowed for action in Afghanistan.