FOR THE GREATER GOOD

Why do they do it? What inspires someone to give up their very lives so that others might live out theirs instead? Is it love of freedom, love of country, love of their fellow man? What brings people to the point of such supreme self-sacrifice?

Although it is an act of bravery, does the person who gives up their life think in those terms in the, in some instances, split second decision they make to save others?

It would seem to be more of a reaction that is built upon a habitual way of thinking acquired from training or upbringing or both. It is certainly true that not everyone has acquired that same mindset. It is not necessarily a dishonor to be habituated in a different way, but it is definitely up to the living to do honor to those who so thoroughly sacrificed in the interest of the greater good.

The American Medal Of Honor (MOH) is one of the ways we do that in this country. The recipients of that award are hero's in deed and live on in memory as outstanding examples of the best of American values.

What follows is the story of our most recent MOH winner. It is the story of an everyday American who is an example of what Lincoln would call, "...the better angels of our nature". Thank God for these angels.

A Man in Full

Next week on Flag Day, Army Private First Class Ross McGinnis would have turned 21 years old. Yesterday, President Bush presented his family with a posthumous Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for courage in combat. It was the fourth time the Medal has been awarded for those who have served in Iraq.

Private First Class Ross Andrew McGinnis

In the gunner's hatch of a Humvee driving through Baghdad on December 4, 2006, Private McGinnis saw a grenade fly through the hatch, rolling to where it could have injured the four other soldiers inside. In easy position to leap and save himself, McGinnis instead jumped to cover the grenade with his body to shield his comrades.

The four men he saved were all at the White House yesterday to pay their respects. They and his parents, Thomas and Romayne McGinnis, knew Ross as one who, at 137 pounds and six feet tall, had barely outgrown his boyhood when he joined the Army on his 17th birthday, the first day he was eligible to enlist. The Knox, Pennsylvania native was known not to take things too seriously, the soldiers said – and yet in an instant he displayed the self-sacrifice that defines heroism in battle across generations. Although he didn't grow while he was in the Army, "he seemed to stand a lot taller," his father said. "He was a man."

All of America's men and women in uniform today are volunteers, and they have answered the call knowing they may be put in harm's way. "Supporting the troops" has become a mantra in our politics, but the true heroism of our soldiers goes beyond the slogans and politics to countless individual acts of courage under fire. At the moment it mattered, in a war worth fighting, Ross McGinnis honored America's finest traditions and our own better natures.

READ MORE: President Bush Presents Medal of Honor to Private First Class Ross Andrew McGinnis

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Comments

As I read the stories the people in Iraq and Afghanistan blog, I begin to understand. After all, they are hearing how so many don't support their mission even while giving lip service to their sacrifices. They certainly aren't doing it for total strangers in a foreign land. They do it for the love of their comrades. How many times have we heard the story of the injured who've lost limbs and spent months and sometimes a couple of years in recovery and all they can think about is going back. They feel as if they've abandoned their teammates. I shudder at the message they are getting from the news casts and the demonstrations. I am peeved at the politicians who assume they are evil in their deeds. I anxiously await the decision on Colonel Chessani and like uniformed members being threatened with courts martial or equivalent. Only two left with any charges against them in the Haditha case.