Michael Monsoor
- 04.02.2008 - 9:24 AMThe White House announced yesterday that Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Monsoor, a Navy SEAL, would posthumously receive the Medal of Honor — only the third MOH recipient in the Iraq war. From the Washington Post’s story:
Monsoor and a group of SEAL snipers took up position on a residential rooftop as part of an operation to push into a dangerous section of southern Ramadi. Four insurgents armed with AK-47 rifles came into view, and the SEAL snipers opened fire, killing one and wounding another. Loudspeakers from a mosque broadcast calls for insurgents to rally, and residents blocked off nearby roads with rocks.
Insurgents shot back at the SEAL position with automatic weapons from a moving vehicle and fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the building. The SEALs knew that more attacks were inevitable but continued their mission of protecting the troops clearing the area below, according to an official account.
Monsoor’s commander repositioned him in a small hidden location between two SEAL snipers on an outcropping of the roof, facing the most likely route of another insurgent attack. As Monsoor manned his gun, an insurgent lobbed up a hand grenade, which hit Monsoor in the chest and bounced onto the roof.
“Grenade!” Monsoor shouted. But the two snipers and another SEAL on the roof had no time to escape, as Monsoor was closest to the only exit. Monsoor dropped onto the grenade, smothering it with his body. It detonated, and Monsoor died about 30 minutes later from his wounds.
True to form, the New York Times could not be bothered today to mention the awarding of our nation’s highest honor. The story is nowhere to be found in the print edition. Buried on the Times’ website, though, one can find a three-sentence mention from the AP — an item whose brevity is a disgrace not just to the solemn importance of the award, but to Monsoor’s selflessness and heroism. Priorities, you see.
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April 2nd, 2008 at 12:50 PM
This depressing story is why McCain’s biography, in the end, will matter very little. The media has displaced the heroism of our warriors with charlatans and rogues.
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:00 PM
The Times supports the troops.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:36 PM
I think that what I posted above is reenforced by the fact that your post received only two responses. Even Commentary readers are indifferent to our heroic warriors.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:24 PM
[…] Contentions posts on the third Medal of Honor awarded for combat in Iraq. […]
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:31 PM
Mr. Zissorson: I am not sure the lack of comments means a lack of interest or respect. For my part, I am just about rendered speechless by this account of Michaael Monsoor’s courage and sacrifice.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:35 PM
[…] via: Commentary Magazine’s Noah Pollak […]
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:09 PM
In The Abolition of Man (Macmillan, 1947) C.S. Lewis wrote:
“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
Recalling this seems somehow appropriate when thinking of the New York Times.
April 4th, 2008 at 10:16 AM
I must agree with Uncle Ralph — where do we find such heroes, and how can we possibly have the dishonor to laugh at them or ignore them?
I also agree with Mr. Kraft; Michael Monsoor’s sacrifice — and his love for country and his comrades-in-arms — takes my breath away.
America desperately needs heroes… and America is producing heroes, in amazing numbers. But some Americans prefer to look the other way.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:19 AM
Absolutely amazing. We go to war in Iraq, and the NY Times runs articles about how the intelligence used was either cherry-picked or wrong, and people complain that they’re unamerican, doubting our President like that.
We don’t find WMD’s, and the NY Times talks about that, and brings up people like Hans Blix, former weapons inspector, who was there until days before the invasion. And people complain that they’re listening to the wrong people.
Iraqi’s are dying, they don’t have power more than a few hours a day, they don’t have running water, they’re in the middle of a civil war. The NY Times reports that, and people complain that they’re concentrating on the negative, not showing all the good that’s come out of Iraq.
Halliburton posts multi-billion dollar profits from their no-bid contract. Big Oil has record-setting profits and is still receiving tax subsidies from the government. And people complain about how they’re anti-capitalism.
Prisoners get tortured, the NY Times reports it, and people complain that they’re tying the hands of the government with all this “human rights” nonsense.
Soldiers die in Iraq every day. The NY Times writes about it, and people complain that they’re concentrating on the negative side of the war. And how they hate America. And how our soldiers are dying protecting our freedoms.
So the NY Times, tired of all the people screaming at them, figures out that nobody wants to know about one more dead soldier. And they catch hell for that.
What do you people want, anyway? There’s no good side to our staying in Iraq. We aren’t “combatting terrorism” in any meaningful sense; our presence there just inflames the locals and creates more terrorists. If anything, we’re training them, in the sense that we give them targets and allow them to test their tactics against us.
Why did Monsoor die? He was protecting his team. Why was his team in danger? Because they were in Iraq, which is going through a civil war because the Shia and the Sunni can’t agree on which one of them gets to be in power. What benefit comes from our presence in Iraq?
Damn. OK, you’ve got me there. I can’t see an upside to that.
April 9th, 2008 at 5:10 AM
There is a detailed, respectful story today in the New York Times by Sarah Abruzzese under the headline “Bush Gives Medal of Honor to Slain Navy Seals Member.” Perhaps Mr. Pollak should have waited until after the award of the medal April 8 to say what was “true to form” for the Times. In fact, if he had looked, he would have found that every time the Medal of Honor has been given for heroism by a serviceman in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Times has covered it. The Washington Post had a nice story April 1, but that was neither the day the award was first announced nor the day it was presented, so there was was no reason to pass judgment on the Times based on its content that particular day.