Cpl. Dunham's Quick Action
In Combat, Marine Put Theory to Test, Comrades Believe Cpl. Dunham's Quick
Action In Face of a Grenade Saved 2 Lives, They Say 'No, No -- Watch His
Hand!'
By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL May 25, 2004; Page A1
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 squadmates.
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."
A Marine kisses a helmet standing in honor of Cpl. Jason L.
Dunham during a service at Camp Al Qaim, Iraq.
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."