Navy Seals

She might be 13 and beanpole-thin, but Lauren Hagedorn can compete with any Navy SEAL. Hagedorn, a runner and swimmer from Manhattan Beach, stuck out in the crowd of mostly muscled, 20-something guys grunting and sweating through a series of grueling exercise events set up by the SEALs for the public on the UCLA campus Saturday morning. After knocking out a 500-yard swim, 85 push-ups, 58 sit-ups, 12 pull-ups and a 1.5-mile run, Hagedorn panted, smiling at her strong finish.

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.

Dangling like a monkey from two industrial nylon straps slung over a workout cage, former professional volleyball player Chad Convis is demonstrating how to do a dazzling array of exercises on a newfangled contraption called the TRX System. Keeping a firm grip on the neoprene-padded handles, the TRX rep leans backward on his heels at a 45-degree angle and does pull-ups, using his own weight like a commando scaling a building. He then stands up, turns around and leans forward into push-ups.

Everyone agrees that Danny Dietz died a hero. The Navy SEAL perished in the mountains of Afghanistan two years ago, holding off militia fighters for 45 minutes during an ambush. The helicopter coming to rescue his four-man squad was shot down, and Dietz, though wounded, resisted so ferociously that one of his comrades was able to escape. Petty Officer 2nd Class Dietz, 25, was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, the service's second-highest honor, for his valor.

Navy SEAL Marc Lee, killed in combat Aug. 2 in Ramadi, Iraq, has been posthumously awarded a Silver Star for bravery, the Navy said Thursday. Lee, 28, a member of a SEAL team based here, was the first member of the elite Navy unit to be killed in Iraq. "His brave actions in the line of fire saved the lives of many of his teammates," the Silver Star citation reads. Lee also received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

When Navy SEAL Marc Alan Lee talked to his wife last week from Iraq, he was upbeat as always, discussing their future, his SEAL team's planned return to Coronado, Calif., in October and the prospect of starting a family. The next day the 28-year-old Lee, a petty officer 2nd class, was killed in a prolonged firefight with insurgents in Ramadi, making him the first SEAL killed in Iraq. Two other SEALs were wounded in what a reporter embedded with U.S.

Mario Romero was in the middle of training to be a Navy SEAL when he heard about it: the largest loss of life in a single mission in the 40-year history of the elite force of Navy commandos. Eleven SEALs had died in Afghanistan -- three were part of a Special Forces unit that disappeared June 28 in the mountains of Afghanistan, and eight were aboard a helicopter shot down by Taliban guerrillas while attempting to rescue the unit. The most SEALs killed in a single incident in Vietnam was five.

Eight members of the Navy's elite SEAL teams Tuesday were awarded medals for bravery in Iraq by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Because of the secrecy of SEAL missions, the names of those receiving the Bronze Stars were not released. Nor were descriptions of what they had done. Rumsfeld also awarded a Purple Heart to one SEAL and recognized two others who had earlier been awarded Purple Hearts. "They're amazing folks," he said of the SEALs.

After high school, while his parents lived in Europe for several years, Matthew G. Axelson of Cupertino, Calif., saw a chance to learn about the world and eagerly took advantage of it. Using his parents' overseas homes as his base, he traveled to Italy, Switzerland, Spain, France, England, Poland, Holland and Germany. As a political science major in college, he had a penchant for comparing other countries to the U.S., recalled his father, Cordell, who was a telecommunications manager in Europe.