By Christin Davies
GCN Live.com
Mike Monsoor was posthumously awarded the “Congressional Medal Of Honor”, for giving his life in Iraq, as he jumped on, and covered with his body, a live hand grenade, saving the lives of a large group of navy seals that was passing by.
Monsoor enlisted in the United States Navy in 2001 and graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training in 2004. After further training he was assigned to Delta Platoon, SEAL Team Three.
Delta Platoon was sent to Iraq in April 2006 and assigned to train Iraqi Army soldiers in Ramadi. Over the next five months, Monsoor and his platoon frequently engaged in combat with insurgent forces. On September 29, 2006 an insurgent threw a grenade onto a rooftop where Monsoor and several other SEAL and Iraqi soldiers were positioned. Monsoor quickly smothered the grenade with his body, absorbing the resulting explosion and saving his comrades from serious injury or death. Monsoor died 30 minutes later from serious wounds caused by the grenade explosion.
On March 31, 2008, the United States Department of Defense confirmed that Michael Monsoor would posthumously receive the Medal of Honor from the President of the United States, George W. Bush. Bush presented the medal to Monsoor’s parents on April 8, 2008. In October 2008, United States Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter announced that DDG-1001, the second ship in the Zumwalt class of destroyers, would be named Michael Monsoor in his honor.
During Mike Monsoor’s funeral, at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, in San Diego, the six pallbearers removed the rosewood casket from the hearse, lined up on each side of the casket were his family members, friends, fellow sailors, and well-wishers. The column of people continued from the hearse, all the way to the grave site. The group included every navy seal (45 to be exact) that Mike Monsoor saved.
Everyone of those Seal’s that he saved removed his Trident Pin from his uniform and pressed it into the casket, causing the pin to embed itself into the top of the wooden casket, then the Navy Seal would step back from the casket, and salute.
A Trident Pin is what a Navy Seal Officer is awarded after one completes the basic Navy Seals program which lasts for three weeks, and is followed by Seal qualification training, which is 15 more weeks of training, necessary to continue improving basic skills and to learn new tactics and techniques, required for an assignment to a Navy Seal Platoon. After successful completion, trainees are given their naval enlisted code, and are awarded the Navy Seal Trident Pin. With this gold pin they are now officially Navy Seals.
By the time the rosewood casket reached the grave site, it looked as though it had a gold inlay from the 45 Trident pins that lined the top. This was a fitting end to an eternal send-off for a war hero. The display moved many attending the funeral, including U.S. President George W. Bush, who spoke about the incident later during a speech stating: “The procession went on nearly half an hour, and when it was all over, the simple wooden coffin had become a gold-plated memorial to a hero who will never be forgotten.”
Watch the video of the funeral procession: