Veteran's Day 2006

[Duckster]

(CNN) – President Bush announced on Friday that the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration, will be awarded posthumously to Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham.

In April 2004, Dunham was leading a patrol in an Iraqi town near the Syrian border when the patrol stopped a convoy of cars leaving the scene of an attack on a Marine convoy, according to military and media accounts of the action.

An occupant of one of the cars attacked Dunham and the two fought hand to hand. As they fought, Dunham yelled to fellow Marines, “No, no watch his hand.” The attacker then dropped a grenade and Dunham hurled himself on top of it, using his helmet to try to blunt the force of the blast.

Still, Dunham was critically wounded in the explosion and died eight days later at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

Source: Marine to receive Medal of Honor for Iraq heroism - CNN.com

I post this a day early not because the federal holiday is observed on Friday, but because the US Marine Corps is 231 years old today.

To all who served, thank you.

To all who are serving, thank you, and come home safe and well.

To my father from the Greatest Generation, thank you. Semper Fi.