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."
Write to Michael M. Phillips at
michael.phillips@wsj.com