In Combat,
Marine Put Theory To
Test, Saves Lives
by Mr. Michael M. Phillips
Marine Corps News
May 26, 2004
AL
QA'IM, Iraq -- Early this spring, Cpl. Jason Dunham and two other Marines sat
in an outpost in Iraq and traded theories on surviving a hand-grenade
attack. Second Lt. Brian
"Bull" Robinson suggested that if a Marine lay face down on the
grenade and held it between his forearms, the ceramic bulletproof plate in his
flak vest might be strong enough to protect his vital organs. His arms would
shatter, but he might live.
Cpl.
Dunham had another idea: A Marine's Kevlar helmet held over the grenade might
contain the blast. "I'll bet a Kevlar would stop it," he said,
according to Second Lt. Robinson.
"No,
it'll still mess you up," Staff Sgt. John Ferguson recalls saying.
It
was a conversation the men would remember vividly a few weeks later, when they
saw the shredded remains of Cpl. Dunham's helmet, apparently blown apart from
the inside by a grenade. Fellow Marines believe Cpl. Dunham's actions saved the
lives of two men and have recommended him for the Medal of Honor, an award that
no act of heroism since 1993 has garnered.
A 6-foot-1 star high-school athlete from Scio, N.Y., Cpl. Dunham was chosen to
become a squad leader shortly after he was assigned to Kilo Company, Third
Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment in September 2003. Just 22 years old, he showed "the kind of leadership where
you're confident in your abilities and don't have to yell about it," says
Staff Sgt. Ferguson, 30, of Aurora, Colo. Cpl.
Dunham's
reputation grew when he extended his enlistment, due to end in July, so he
could stay with his squad throughout its tour in the war zone. During the invasion of Iraq last year, the
Third Battalion didn't suffer any combat casualties. But since March, 10 of its
900 Marines have died from hostile fire, and 89 have been wounded.
April
14 was an especially bad day. Cpl. Dunham was in the town of Karabilah, leading
a 14-man foot patrol to scout sites for a new base, when radio reports came pouring
in about a roadside bomb hitting another group of Marines not far away. Insurgents, the reports said, had ambushed a
convoy that included the battalion commander, 40-year-old Lt. Col. Matthew
Lopez, of Chicago. One rifle shot penetrated the rear of the commander's
Humvee, hitting him in the back, Lt. Col. Lopez says. His translator and
bodyguard, Lance Cpl. Akram Falah, 23, of Anaheim, Calif., had taken a bullet
to the bicep, severing an artery, according to medical reports filed later.
Cpl.
Dunham's patrol jumped aboard some Humvees and raced toward the convoy. Near
the double-arched gateway of the town of Husaybah, they heard the distinctive
whizzing sound of a rocket-propelled grenade overhead. They left their vehicles
and split into two teams to hunt for the shooters, according to interviews with
two men who were there and written reports from two others. Around 12:15 p.m., Cpl. Dunham's team came
to an intersection and saw a line of seven Iraqi vehicles along a dirt
alleyway, according to Staff Sgt. Ferguson and others there. At Staff Sgt.
Ferguson's instruction, they started checking the vehicles for weapons.
Cpl.
Dunham approached a run-down white Toyota Land Cruiser. The driver, an Iraqi in
a black track suit and loafers, immediately lunged out and grabbed the corporal
by the throat, according to men at the scene. Cpl. Dunham kneed the man in the
chest, and the two tumbled to the ground.
Two other Marines rushed to the scene. Private First Class Kelly Miller,
21, of Eureka, Calif., ran from the passenger side of the vehicle and put a
choke hold around the man's neck. But the Iraqi continued to struggle,
according to a military report Pfc. Miller gave later. Lance Cpl. William B.
Hampton, 22, of Woodinville, Wash., also ran to help.
A
few yards away, Lance Cpl. Jason Sanders, 21, a radio operator from McAlester,
Okla., says he heard Cpl. Dunham yell a warning: "No, no, no -- watch his
hand!"
What
was in the Iraqi's hand appears to have been a British-made "Mills
Bomb" hand grenade. The Marines later found an unexploded Mills Bomb in
the Toyota, along with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled-grenade
launchers. A Mills Bomb user pulls a
ring pin out and squeezes the external lever -- called the spoon -- until he's
ready to throw it. Then he releases the spoon, leaving the bomb armed.
Typically, three to five seconds elapse between the time the spoon detaches and
the grenade explodes. The Marines later found what they believe to have been
the grenade's pin on the floor of the Toyota, suggesting that the Iraqi had the
grenade in his hand -- on a hair trigger -- even as he wrestled with Cpl.
Dunham.
None
of the other Marines saw exactly what Cpl. Dunham did, or even saw the grenade.
But they believe Cpl. Dunham spotted the grenade -- prompting his warning cry
-- and, when it rolled loose, placed his helmet and body on top of it to
protect his squad mates. The scraps of
Kevlar found later, scattered across the street, supported their conclusion.
The grenade, they think, must have been inside the helmet when it exploded. His
fellow Marines believe that Cpl. Dunham made an instantaneous decision to try
out his theory that a helmet might blunt the grenade blast.
"I
deeply believe that given the facts and evidence presented he clearly
understood the situation and attempted to block the blast of the grenade from
his squad members," Lt. Col. Lopez wrote in a May 13 letter recommending
Cpl. Dunham for the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for military
valor. "His personal action was far beyond the call of duty and saved the
lives of his fellow Marines."
Recommendations
for the Medal of Honor are rare. The Marines say they have no other candidates
awaiting approval. Unlike other awards, the Medal of Honor must be approved by
the president. The most recent act of heroism to earn the medal came 11 years
ago, when two Army Delta Force soldiers gave their lives protecting a downed
Blackhawk helicopter pilot in Somalia.
Staff
Sgt. Ferguson was crossing the street to help when the grenade exploded. He
recalls feeling a hollow punch in his chest that reminded him of being close to
the starting line when dragsters gun their engines. Lance Cpl. Sanders,
approaching the scene, was temporarily deafened, he says. He assumed all three
Marines and the Iraqi must surely be dead.
In
fact, the explosion left Cpl. Dunham unconscious and face down in his own
blood, according to Lance Cpl. Sanders. He says the Iraqi lay on his back,
bleeding from his midsection. The fight
wasn't over, however. To Lance Cpl. Sanders's surprise, the Iraqi got up and
ran. Lance Cpl. Sanders says he raised his rifle and fired 25 shots at the
man's back, killing him.
The other two Marines were injured, but alive. Lance Cpl. Hampton was spitting
up blood and had shrapnel embedded in his left leg, knee, arm and face,
according to a military transcript. Pfc. Miller's arms had been perforated by
shrapnel. Yet both Marines struggled to their feet and staggered back toward
the corner.
"Cpl.
Dunham was in the middle of the explosion," Pfc. Miller told a Marine
officer weeks later, after he and Lance Cpl. Hampton were evacuated to the U.S.
to convalesce. "If it was not for him, none of us would be here. He took
the impact of the explosion."
At
first, Lance Cpl. Mark Edward Dean, a 22-year-old mortarman, didn't recognize
the wounded Marine being loaded into the back of his Humvee. Blood from shrapnel wounds in the Marine's
head and neck had covered his face. Then Lance Cpl. Dean spotted the tattoo on his
chest -- an Ace of Spades and a skull -- and realized he was looking at one of
his closest friends, Cpl. Dunham. A volunteer firefighter back home in Owasso,
Okla., Lance Cpl. Dean says he knew from his experience with car wrecks
that his friend had a better chance of surviving if he stayed calm.
"You're
going to be all right," Lance Cpl. Dean remembers saying as the Humvee
sped back to camp. "We're going to get you home."
When
the battalion was at its base in Twentynine Palms, Calif., the two Marines had
played pool and hung out with Lance Cpl. Dean's wife, Becky Jo, at the couple's
nearby home. Once in a while, Lance Cpl. Dean says they'd round up friends,
drive to Las Vegas and lose some money at the roulette tables. Shortly before
the battalion left Kuwait for Iraq, Lance Cpl. Dean ran short of cash. He says
Cpl. Dunham bought him a 550-minute phone card so he could call Becky Jo. He
used every minute.
At
battalion headquarters in al Qa'im, Chaplain David Slater was in his makeshift
chapel -- in a stripped-down Iraqi train car with red plastic chairs as pews --
when he heard an Army Blackhawk helicopter take off. The 46-year-old Navy chaplain from Lincoln, Neb. knew that meant
the shock-trauma platoon would soon receive fresh casualties. Shortly afterward, the helicopter arrived.
Navy corpsmen and Marines carried Cpl. Dunham's stretcher 200 feet to the
medical tent, its green floor and white walls emitting a rubbery scent, clumps
of stethoscopes hanging like bananas over olive-drab trunks of chest tubes,
bandages and emergency airway tubes.
The
bearers rested the corporal's stretcher on a pair of black metal sawhorses. A
wounded Iraqi fighter was stripped naked on the next stretcher -- standard
practice for all patients, according to the medical staff, to ensure no injury
goes unnoticed. The Iraqi had plastic
cuffs on his ankles and was on morphine to quiet him, according to medical
personnel who were there.
When a wounded Marine is conscious, Chaplain Slater makes
small talk -- asks his name and hometown -- to help keep the patient calm and
alert even in the face of often-horrific wounds. Chaplain Slater says he talked
to Cpl. Dunham, held his hand and prayed. But he saw no sign that the corporal
heard a word. After five minutes or so, he says, he moved on to another Marine.
At
the same time, the medical team worked to stabilize Cpl. Dunham. One grenade
fragment had penetrated the left side of his skull not far behind his eye, says
Navy Cmdr. Ed Hessel, who treated him. A second entered the brain slightly
higher and further toward the back of his head. A third punctured his neck.
Cmdr.
Hessel, a 44-year-old emergency-room doctor from Eugene, Ore., quickly
concluded that the corporal was "unarousable." A calm, bespectacled
man, he says he wanted to relieve the corporal's brain and body of the effort
required to breathe. And he wanted to be sure the corporal had no violent
physical reactions that might add to the
pressure on his already swollen brain.
Navy
Lt. Ted Hering, a 27-year-old critical-care nurse from San Diego, inserted an
intravenous drip and fed in drugs to sedate the corporal, paralyze his muscles
and blunt the gag response in his throat while a breathing tube was inserted
and manual ventilator attached.
The
Marine's heart rate and blood pressure stabilized, according to Cmdr. Hessel.
But a field hospital in the desert didn't have the resources to help him any
further. So Cpl. Dunham was put on
another Blackhawk to take him to the Seventh Marines' base at Al Asad, a
transfer point for casualties heading on to the military surgical hospital in
Baghdad. During the flight, the corporal lay on the top stretcher. Beneath him
was the Iraqi, with two tubes protruding from his chest to keep his lungs from
collapsing. Lt.
Hering stood next to the stretchers, squeezing a plastic bag every four to five
seconds to press air into Cpl. Dunham's lungs.
The
Iraqi, identified in battalion medical records only as POW#1, repeatedly asked
for water until six or seven minutes before landing, when Cpl. Dunham's
blood-drenched head bandage burst, sending a red cascade through the mesh
stretcher and onto the Iraqi's face below.
After
that, the man remained quiet, and kept his eyes and mouth clenched shut, says
the nurse, Lt. Hering.
The Army air crew made the trip in 25 minutes, their fastest run ever,
according to the pilot, and skimmed no higher than 50 feet off the ground to
avoid changes in air pressure that might put additional strain on Cpl. Dunham's
brain.
When
the Blackhawk touched down at Al Asad, Cpl. Dunham was turned over to new
caretakers. The Blackhawk promptly headed back to al Qa'im. More patients were
waiting; 10 Marines from the Third Battalion were wounded on April 14, along
with a translator.
At
11:45 p.m. that day, Deb and Dan Dunham were at home in Scio, N.Y., a town of
1,900, when they got the phone call all military parents dread. It was a Marine lieutenant telling them
their son had sustained shrapnel wounds to the head, was unconscious and in
critical condition.
Mr.
Dunham, 43, an Air Force veteran, works in the shipping department of a company
that makes industrial heaters, and Mrs. Dunham, 44, teaches home economics. She
remembers helping her athletic son, the oldest of four, learn to spell as a
young boy by playing "PIG" and "HORSE" -- traditional basketball
shooting games -- and expanding the games to include other words. He never left
home or hung up the phone without telling his mother, "I love you,"
she says.
The
days that followed were filled with uncertainty, fear and hope. The Dunhams
knew their son was in a hospital in Baghdad, then in Germany, where surgeons
removed part of his skull to relieve the swelling inside. At one point doctors upgraded his condition
from critical to serious. On April 21,
the Marines gave the Dunhams plane tickets from Rochester to Washington, and
put them up at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where their
son was going to be transferred. Mrs. Dunham brought along the first Harry
Potter novel, so she and her husband could take turns reading to their son,
just to let him know they were there.
When
Cpl. Dunham arrived that night, the doctors told the couple he had taken a turn
for the worse, picking up a fever on the flight from Germany. After an hour by
their son's side, Mr. Dunham says he had a "gut feeling" that the outlook
was bleak. Mrs. Dunham searched for signs of hope, planning to ask relatives to
bring two more Harry Potter books, in case they finished the first one. Doctors
urged the Dunhams to get some rest.
They
were getting dressed the next morning when the intensive-care unit called to
say the hospital was sending a car for them. "Jason's condition is very,
very grim," Mrs. Dunham remembers a doctor saying. "I have to tell
you the outlook isn't very promising."
She
says doctors told her the shrapnel had traveled down the side of his brain, and
the damage was irreversible. He would always be on a respirator. He would never
hear his parents or know they were by his side. Another operation to relieve
pressure on his brain had little chance of succeeding and a significant chance
of killing him.
Once
he joined the Marines, Cpl. Dunham put his father in charge of medical
decisions and asked that he not be kept on life support if there was no hope of
recovery, says Mr. Dunham. He says his son told him, "Please don't leave
me like that."
The
Dunhams went for a walk on the hospital grounds. When they returned to the
room, Cpl. Dunham's condition had deteriorated, his mother says. Blood in his urine signaled failing kidneys,
and one lung had collapsed as the other was filling with fluid. Mrs. Dunham
says they took the worsening symptoms as their son's way of telling them they
should follow through on his wishes.
At
the base in al Qa'im, Second Lt. Robinson, 24, of Kenosha, Wis., gathered the
men of Cpl. Dunham's platoon in the sleeping area, a spread of cots, backpacks,
CD players and rifles, its plywood walls papered with magazine shots of
scantily clad women. The lieutenant says he told the Marines of the Dunhams'
decision to remove their son's life support in two hours' time.
Lance
Cpl. Dean wasn't the only Marine who cried. He says he prayed that some miracle
would happen in the next 120 minutes. He prayed that God would touch his friend
and wake him up so he could live the life he had wanted to lead.
In
Bethesda, the Dunhams spent a couple more hours with their son. Marine Corps Commandant Michael Hagee
arrived and pinned the Purple Heart, awarded to those wounded in battle, on his
pillow. Mrs. Dunham cried on Gen. Hagee's shoulder. The Dunhams stepped out of
the room while the doctors removed the ventilator.
At
4:43 p.m. on April 22, 2004, Marine Cpl. Jason L. Dunham died. Six days later, Third Battalion gathered in
the parking lot outside the al Qa'im command post for psalms and ceremony. In a
traditional combat memorial, one Marine plunged a rifle, bayonet-first, into a
sandbag. Another placed a pair of tan
combat boots in front, and a third perched a helmet on the rifle's stock. Lance
Cpl. Dean told those assembled about a trip to Las Vegas the two men and Becky
Jo Dean had taken in January, not long before the battalion left for the
Persian Gulf. Chatting in a hotel room,
the corporal told his friends he was planning to extend his enlistment and stay
in Iraq for the battalion's entire tour.
"You're
crazy for extending," Lance Cpl. Dean recalls saying.
"Why?"
He
says Cpl. Dunham responded: "I want to make sure everyone makes it home
alive. I want to be sure you go home to your wife alive."