There Are Plenty Of Heroes

As you know, I am committed to profiling heroes, and here is another one:

Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor sacrificed his life to save his comrades by throwing himself on top of a grenade Iraqi insurgents tossed into their sniper hideout.

For those of us who grew up playing GI Joe, or whatever your military role playing was called as a child, this scenario is familiar. The heroic gesture of sacrificing your own life to save all of your friends is always in a decent war movie.

When I was in infantry school at Camp Lejeune, we used to joke about this all the time. One day we were training on clearing trenchlines and bunkers, and one of my best friends, John Hartman from Ohio, jumped on a practice grenade that was thrown by a young, but old Corps Marine named Corporal Benner. Benner was our training platoon leader. I thought he was going to stroke when Hartman jumped on the grenade - partially from the stupid factor, because those training grenades can blow off a couple of fingers - but mostly from the idiocy of jumping on one anytime. We don't really train to do that, and we train to survive by being smart.

A basic fragmentation grenade has a kill radius of about 15 feet, with a time delay of roughly 3-5 seconds. You run, you dive, you dig a hole really quickly to survive. Sometimes combat doesn't go like training. Read the link on the title post.

Jesus said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)

Semper Fi, Monsoor