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Jason Dunham
Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
In a White House ceremony on January 11, President Bush gave Jason Dunham's Medal of Honor to his parents, Dan and Debbie (pictured on this week's NJ cover). Dunham is the second American since 9/11, and the first marine since Vietnam, to receive the nation's highest award for bravery. He earned it by making a split-second decision to put his body between his comrades and an exploding grenade. But what made that moment possible was months of preparation.
A squad leader at the young age of 22, charged with leading nine other men into battle, Dunham stood out for his seriousness and intensity, even among his fellow marines. Before Dunham's infantry unit deployed to Iraq in 2004, it held a militarily unorthodox NFL-style draft to let the sergeants choose their own men. Out of more than 120 marines in his company, Dunham was the second choice of the unit's most senior noncommissioned officer, Gunnery Sgt. John Ferguson.
"I had a whole list of marines I definitely wanted," Ferguson recalled. "He would've been competitive with [my first choice]," but Dunham had just recently transferred in from another unit -- the Marine equivalent of military police -- and he had never been to Iraq, whereas Ferguson and most of his marines had already deployed there once together. Dunham, however, had quickly impressed Ferguson as squad leader material.
"Physical prowess, a great work ethic, approachable," Ferguson summed up. "He didn't have to yell all the time. He had the respect and admiration of peers and subordinates. It's one thing to respect somebody's collar [where the rank insignia are displayed], and it's another thing to respect somebody as a man."
When the marines arrived in their assigned sector on the Syrian border, they went on a joint patrol with the Army unit they were replacing -- the marines on foot, the Army soldiers in their tank-like Bradley fighting vehicles. The mixed force came under fire from an abandoned Baath Party headquarters. "When the fire started going, the first thing Jason did was take us right to the front," recalled Cpl. William Hampton, one of the two team leaders in Dunham's squad. "He looked right at Sergeant Ferg and said, 'We're ready to go.' Ferg was like, 'No, no, wait a second.' Then the Bradleys lit up the house" -- with a barrage of explosive 25 millimeter cannon shells -- "and that was the end of it."
For the next month, though, Dunham and his marines got stuck handling base security. The day he died, April 14, 2004, "was Dunham's first patrol as patrol leader," said his company commander, Capt. Trent Gibson (now a major). As the patrol checked out potential sites for forward bases in the twin border towns of Karibila and Husayba, the marines heard explosions: Their battalion commander and his escorts had been ambushed. The platoon split in two -- Ferguson and Dunham with one group, Gibson with the other -- and rushed to the rescue on parallel roads. As they advanced, each came upon civilian vehicles fleeing the fight. The marines stopped to search the cars, trying to separate terrified Iraqi civilians from retreating insurgents.
Aggressive as ever, Dunham went straight for a white truck carrying four military-age men. "I saw the Iraqi getting out of the truck and attacking Dunham," Hampton said. "I started to run toward him," along with two other marines, Kelly Miller and, behind Hampton, Jason Sanders. "Miller had gone down and was trying to choke the Iraqi, Jason was lying across him holding him down, I raised my rifle to hit the Iraqi, and the grenade went off. It threw me on my back, it threw Miller against the wall, and Jason just lay there."
In the chaos, Hampton had not heard what other marines said were Dunham's last words. "No, no, watch his hands!" But Hampton had clearly seen Dunham's head bare and unprotected, and his helmet on the ground -- with the grenade under it, the marines later realized, and Dunham sprawled on top of it, holding it down. "He had the upper part of his body on it, with his arms crossed," Hampton said. The blast ripped the helmet in two, scattering scraps of Kevlar all over the road, and drove a piece of shrapnel through Dunham's left eye into his brain. But after spending its force on Dunham's body, the grenade only wounded Kelly and Hampton -- and the Iraqi insurgent, who tried to run away before a shocked but unscathed Sanders shot him dead. Dunham died eight days later without regaining consciousness. "I think about him every waking day," Hampton said. "Whenever I put my shirt on, I look at my scars and remember."