"Bart Simpson" to be awarded Medal of Honor...

[ELB]

http://www.julescrittenden.com/2008/05/ ... t-simpson/

Troubled teen becomes war hero
Submitted by SHNS on Fri, 05/16/2008 - 15:13. By MILAN SIMONICH, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette national
KNOX, Pa. -- Spc. Ross McGinnis, a kid who hated school and even got expelled for buying marijuana on campus, did more than turn his life around.

He saved the lives of four fellow soldiers when he used his body to cover a grenade that an Iraqi insurgent threw from a rooftop into an Army Humvee.

McGinnis, atop the truck in its machine-gun turret, could have dived to safety. Instead, he jumped into the Humvee and pinned the grenade between his back and the vehicle's radio mount.

The grenade exploded a second or two later, killing McGinnis at age 19.

So powerful was the blast that it nearly took the life of a second soldier, even though McGinnis had turned himself into a shield to protect the others. Shrapnel hit Staff Sgt. Ian Newland in the face and all four limbs. Doctors also diagnosed him with a brain injury.

Newland, 27, a Minnesota native, has settled in Centennial, Colo., with his wife and two children. Lucky to be alive, he thinks of McGinnis every day.

His hope is to be at the White House next month when President Bush posthumously awards McGinnis the Medal of Honor, America's highest military award.

The Army already has authorized the Medal of Honor for McGinnis, but will not confirm it until the White House staff makes the announcement.

Tom and Romayne McGinnis, parents of the fallen soldier, say it is difficult to think of their skinny, rambunctious son as a national hero.

"He'd remind you more of Bart Simpson than anything else -- you know, sort of an underachiever," said Tom McGinnis, 58. "But when it really meant something, he produced."

In Knox, a Clarion County town of 1,000 people, the McGinnises raised two academically gifted daughters and Ross. He was the youngest and by far the most difficult, Tom McGinnis said.

Ross was bright but undisciplined. School did not interest him, so he paid almost no attention to it. Ross seemed determined never to open a book, and his performance reflected that.

At age 14, in eighth grade, Ross bought marijuana from a classmate and foolishly discussed the transaction at Keystone Junior-Senior High School. Staff members searched his locker, where they found a couple of knives, his father said.

Ross had no malicious intent, but this was less than two years after the mass murders at Columbine High in Colorado. School districts across the country no longer had patience for students holding weapons.

The school board expelled Ross and the district attorney prosecuted him in juvenile court. He spent a year on probation. During that time, he had to get permission from his probation officer to go out in the evening.

Embarrassed and stung by the loss of freedom, he began to see that following the rules was better than the alternative, his father said.

An Army recruiter talked to Ross about this time. The Army's pitch -- "Be all you can be" -- seemed tailored for somebody who had gotten little out of his natural talents.

He committed to the Army during his junior year of high school, pledging to enlist the following year, after he graduated.

At that point, he was transformed. Vicky Walters, principal of the Keystone Junior-Senior High School, said Ross began checking graduation requirements with her. He wanted to make sure he did everything necessary to get his diploma so he could become a soldier.

In spring of 2005, Ross graduated from Keystone and then headed to basic training at Fort Benning, Ga. No longer did he stand out as a bad apple or somebody who took the easy but unproductive way.

He volunteered to drill with the heaviest weaponry, even though he was among the thinnest soldiers. Ross, the kid who had annoyed teachers with his misbehavior, was becoming the soldier who performed every task by the book.

His unit deployed to Iraq in August 2006. This period is memorable to Tom because of an e-mail exchange he had with his son.

Ross reviewed his young life and wrote an apology for all the trouble he had caused as a boy. His father, a small, quiet man who works at an auto parts store, says guilt gnaws at him, too. He says he wishes he could have been a better provider.

The exchange of e-mails left Ross feeling emotional. At one point, he wrote a message to his father saying, "You SOB. You made me cry."

Ross then asked every soldier who happened by to read the e-mail his dad had sent.

He had bonded with the men in his unit, regarding them as his friends or perhaps the brothers he never had.

On the morning of Dec. 4, 2006, he began a mission with the rank of private first class. Positioned atop the Humvee in the gunner's hatch, he had the clearest view of the volatile neighborhood of Adhamiyah in Baghdad.

Four other soldiers -- Sgt. Newland, Sgt. 1st Class Cedric Thomas, Sgt. Lyle Buehler and Pfc. Sean "Doc" Lawson -- were in the Humvee.

The driver, Sgt. Buehler, curled around a corner. It was then that Pfc. McGinnis saw the hand grenade coming at them. The others would later report that he must have tried to bat it away, as they felt him moving in the turret.

Pfc. McGinnis shouted a warning -- "Grenade!" -- before the explosive dropped into the Humvee.

"An average man would have leapt out of the gunner's cupola to safety," the Army said in its official account. "Pfc. McGinnis decided to stay with his crew. Unhesitatingly and with complete disregard for his own life ... he threw his back over the grenade."

The explosion blew open the doors of the Humvee and sprayed the other soldiers with shrapnel. Newland, the most seriously injured, came home for medical treatment.

The others remained in combat. These men often hear the word "hero." Pfc. McGinnis showed them what it meant.

Almost immediately, the Army promoted Pfc. McGinnis to the rank of specialist and his superiors nominated him for the Medal of Honor. He posthumously received the Silver Star, third-highest award for valor in combat, but this was described from the beginning as "an interim medal."

Tom and Romayne McGinnis say they are certain Ross never thought of medals. Comradeship drove him.

"What he did was a voluntary sacrifice," Tom McGinnis said.

E-mail Milan Simonich at msimonich(at)post-gazette.com
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com.)

[k6gixx]

My condolences to the family for I know exactly how they feel. My cousin too died in Iraq from a grenade thrown from a childrens hospital. 2 others were killed as well. My prayers are with them.