WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday presented the nation's highest military award posthumously to a 19-year-old soldier who died saving the lives of four comrades in Iraq by jumping on a grenade tossed into their military vehicle.
The honored soldier, Army Pfc. Ross McGinnis, "gave all for his country," the president said somberly.
"No one outside this man's family can know the true weight of their loss. But in words spoken long ago, we are told how to measure the kind of devotion that Ross McGinnis showed on his last day: 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' "
The president spoke in the East Room at a ceremony attended by Vice President Dick Cheney, prior recipients of the Medal of Honor, military leaders, McGinnis' parents, Tom and Romayne, and his two sisters, Becky and Katie. The four soldiers protected by McGinnis' actions were all in attendance.
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McGinnis was in the gunner's hatch of a Humvee on Dec. 4, 2006, on a patrol in Iraq when a grenade sailed past him and into the vehicle where the four other soldiers sat. He shouted a warning, then jumped on the grenade while it was lodged near the vehicle's radio.
"By that split-second decision, Pvt. McGinnis lost his own life, and he saved his comrades," Bush said.
McGinnis grew up in the rural town of Knox, Pa., about 60 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Suicide car bomber kills 9
A suicide car bomber targeted the provincial police headquarters in Mosul on Monday, killing at least nine people and wounding dozens, police said. The attack underscored fears that Sunni insurgents are regrouping despite a U.S.-Iraqi offensive in the northern city.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but suicide operations are commonly associated with al-Qaida in Iraq — the main target of U.S.-Iraqi military operations to clear the city 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
The U.S. military has said the terror network is on the run but retains the ability to conduct its trademark car bombings and suicide attacks. Commanders warn that many key insurgent leaders have fled to outlying areas and are planning attacks.
U.S. toll in Iraq
• Deaths: 4,086
• Wounded: 30,143
Latest identifications
• Marine Cpl. Christian S. Cotner, 20, Waterbury, Conn.; assigned to Marine Wing Support Squadron 172, Marine Wing Support Group 17, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa, Japan.
Source: Department of Defense
