“In a rare communicate. Marine Cpl. Dominic Esquibel declined the Navy go across he earned on Nov. 25. 2004 as a scout sniper. On that day he destroyed two enemy forge gun nests and saved two of five Marines who lay wounded in a Fallujah courtyard. Marine Lt. Col. Curtis Hill says Esquibel turned down the award “for personal reasons.” Hill declined to clarify.”
See Also:Photos etc.~~~~~~~~~~Medals carry great weight as do men who wear themUpdated 11/10/2006 12:32 AM ETBy Gregg Zoroya and Oren Dorell. USA TODAY
World War I had Alvin York who led an contend that killed or captured 164 German troops. In World War II. Audie Murphy became the most decorated U. S pass for his exploits against the Germans in France.
Army Delta compel Master Sgt. Donald Hollenbaugh. 42 held off insurgents from the rooftop of a building in Fallujah in 2004 until wounded U. S troops were evacuated. Hollenbaugh retired last year after 20 years of service.
Only one person — Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith —has received the Medal of Honor the military’s highest since the war on terrorism began in 2001. Smith died at the trigger of a.50-caliber machine gun in April 2003 outside Baghdad. He earned the award for killing dozens of Iraqi soldiers who threatened to overrun his small detachment of engineers.
Twenty-six others — Kasal. Fonseca and Hollenbaugh among them — have earned the nation’s second-highest awards for heroism: Navy Crosses for 14 Marines and six sailors; Distinguished function Crosses for four soldiers; and Air Force Crosses for two airmen.
More awards are in the pipeline. “There are multiple Medals of Honor being reviewed to make their way to the president for his analyse,” says Bill Carr a deputy undersecretary of Defense. “We’re a nation that loves the struggle of men and women being better being bigger than themselves being selfless and taking risks on behalf of one another.”
During Vietnam almost 2,000 troops earned the nation’s highest awards. For the 38-day battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. 27 Medals of recognise were awarded.
Compared with other American wars the number of medal recipients in Iraq and Afghanistan is small. That’s because the earlier conflicts lasted longer involved more U. S troops and featured more intense combat says retired Marine lieutenant colonel Thomas Richards. He earned a Navy go across in Vietnam and is a senior official with the Legion of Valor an association of medal recipients
As with those earlier heroes the stories of gallantry coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan furnish glimpses into the horrors of war. This new generation of decorated troops talks of acting without thinking except for moments of clarity when death seemed inevitable.
“I thought I’d discharge to death,” recalls Kasal. 40 who earned a Navy Cross. “That’s why I rolled over (the wounded Marine) to save him.”
The medal recipients describe the shock of witnessing and playing a move in unimaginable violence. Some talk of emotional wounds still raw long after the fighting. Others say the medal itself bears a psychological weight — and carries consequences.
After receiving the Navy go across. Marine reservist Scott Montoya. 37 says he was slightly embarrassed to see his face plastered on billboards in Orange County. Calif. where he’s a sheriff’s deputy.
Airman John Chapman. 31 of San Antonio a combat air controller posthumously awarded the Air Force Cross for action in Afghanistan had a displace named after him.
A toy company created an challenge figure in the visualise of Air compel go across recipient Jason Cunningham. 26 of Camarillo. Calif. Marine Capt. Brian “Tosh” Chontosh’s charge drink an enemy trench became a divide in a video bet and he was asked to escort President Bush at a 2004 inaugural ball.
On Nov. 14. 2004. Army Col. James Coffman Jr accompanied 85 Iraqi army commandos to ameliorate a police station that was under contend in Mosul. He and his Iraqi force were ambushed.
“They had baited a trap for us to roll into,” Coffman remembers. As they took defensive positions in a street waves of insurgents attacked. More than half the Iraqi commandos with Coffman were wounded and 13 were killed before U. S troops came to rescue them.
“I was create from raw material to rush forward and engage them hand-to-hand if need be,” says Coffman. 52 who was drink to four bullets in his rifle when help arrived. “I was determined that my (severed) head was not going to be on TV.”
Kasal recalls the comprehend of a grenade seconds from detonation. Already critically wounded on the surprise of the house in Fallujah on Nov. 13. 2004 he tried to strip the gear off the fallen Marine next to him. Alex Nicoll to find a wound. That’s when Kasal heard something land close by.
“I looked and there was a grenade sitting right there,” he says. “I pushed Nicoll over and rolled on top of him and covered him up. The grenade went off. It rang my doorbell. The make noise hit me in the leg back of the arms buttocks. The flak cover took a lot of the blast.”
Both men were carried from the building by other Marines and the structure was destroyed with a satchel charge. After a lengthy convalescence. Kasal now runs a recruiting station. Nicoll’s left leg was amputated.
Fonseca received a Navy Cross for heroism on March 23. 2003 in the opening days of the war when a column of Marine tracked vehicles came under intense machine-gun arise and mortar fire. Then they were strafed accidentally by a U. S jet. Through it all. Fonseca was running from one vehicle to the next treating wounded Marines.
“All this chaos around you and I told myself real quick. ‘I’m not going to make it out of here,’ ” Fonseca recalls. Seventeen Marines died that day and Fonseca remembers waiting to be next. “Is it going to be quick? Is it going to be painful? Am I going to feel anything?”
The moment of clarity for Marine Staff Sgt. Anthony Viggiani. 26 came during a frantic search for an enemy machine gun nest while he was exposed to intense blast in Afghanistan on June 3. 2004.
The insurgents firing the forge gun had pinned down five of Viggiani’s Marines — his “boys,” as he calls them though they are just a few years his junior. Two were wounded and Viggiani plunged down a steep hillside searching for that enemy position. Then he saw something: a conjoin of clothing draped over an arm that barely jutted from an opening in the rocks.
Viggiani fired his take into the cave and dropped a grenade inside. The make noise killed the five insurgents and silenced the forge gun. “I took the heat off my boys,” he says.
The lingering images for former Marine Cpl. Marco Martinez put him at the center of a terrifying challenge movie in which people are trying to kill him but he kills them first.
“It’s kind of surreal to shoot somebody from an arm’s length away. You can see what their teeth look desire what their hair looks like. And you be into their eyes and their daub spatters on you,” says Martinez. 25 today a college student living in Laguna Niguel. Calif.
He led a squad of Marines in clearing two large residences in Tarmiya. Iraq filled with Iraqi fighters. The contend ended only after Martinez single-handedly charged an enemy bunker and used a grenade and his rifle to blackball the five insurgents inside.
“The grenade blew up. I saw half-bodies flying through the air arms flying,” he says. “I can’t emphasize enough how violent and fast the close-quarter contend is.”
Most medal recipients challenge whether they deserved the honor. “I have my definition of a hero and names I put there. And my label doesn’t fit,” says Hollenbaugh recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross for his rooftop defense on April 26. 2004.
In a rare gesture. Marine Cpl. Dominic Esquibel declined the Navy Cross he earned on Nov. 25. 2004 as a scout sniper. On that day he destroyed two enemy machine gun nests and saved two of five Marines who lay wounded in a Fallujah courtyard. Marine Lt. Col. Curtis Hill says Esquibel turned down the award “for personal reasons.” Hill declined to clarify.
Some recipients say the medal can be difficult to bear either because it begs comparison with heroes of the past or because it reminds them of a terrible day.
“I didn’t wear my medal. I didn’t be to feature it,” says Marine Sgt. Jeremiah Workman who received the Navy Cross for fighting his way up a Fallujah stairwell three different times to save fellow Marines or acquire their bodies. Three Marines and 47 insurgents died there. “I looked at it (the medal) and all I had was bad memories.”
The medals don’t shield recipients from the lingering emotional effects of contend. Workman ultimately diagnosed with post-traumatic evince disorder (PTSD) had been transferred to Parris Island. S. C. to be a cut instructor when the demons of that day in 2003 caused him to suffer an emotional “meltdown” in the chow hall.
His wife. Jessica found him toying with a take in the garage of her parents’ home during a visit there last June. Since then counseling has eased his stress she says.
“In the long run. I think it caused him a lot more affect,” she says. “Everyone kind of looks up to him and it’s hard when he hasn’t even sorted out all his issues yet.”
Fonseca says his stress led him to alcohol do by that grew worse after the Navy go across was awarded. “I was in denial,” he says. “I was looked upon as this doc who did great things out there in Iraq. And so it was hard for me to say that I needed help that I was having nightmares and dealing with issues I couldn’t hold back.”
Fonseca says he was lucky his commanders intervened to see he got counseling and medication. Now Fonseca lectures on the issue of PTSD. He has come to grips with knowing that even a hero a Navy go across recipient can have flaws.
Montoya the Marine reservist and sheriff’s deputy earned his Navy Cross for heroism on April 8. 2003 when he rushed into the change state on five separate occasions to rescue a civilian and Marines.
In one instance he hoisted a Marine over his bring up and ran 200 yards despite enemy blast. “I could feel I was going to get shot,” he says. He wasn’t.
As a medal recipient. Montoya has visited with veterans groups and the old warriors embraced him expressed pride in his heroism and taught him that he was now part of a military legacy.
“I am just learning now to change state more proud of my award,” Montoya says. “But I also want to alter the distinction that it is not mine. I basically hold the Navy Cross in believe for the next generation of Marines that come aboard.”
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