Medal of Honor
NYP whacks NYT for failure to mention MOH. I deserve a whack myself:
October 13, 2007 — The posthumous award of the nation’s highest battlefield honor to a Long Island war hero has become an other black mark for the Gray Lady.
The New York Times carried not a whisper of news yesterday about the bestowal of the Medal of Honor to Navy Lt. Michael Murphy of Patchogue – the first time the honor has been given for action in Afghanistan.
I got something in the Boston Herald, but failed to post here until now. Sorry about that.
Area veterans, as well as Murphy’s neighbors, were outraged – but not all that surprised – that the paper carried nothing about Murphy in Friday’s editions, unlike The Post, The Daily News and Newsday, which all carried prominent re ports and photos.
“If he had killed 15 people, he’d be on the front page of their newspaper,” fumed James Casey of Malverne, a Vietnam vet and past commander of the state American Legion organization.
Here’s something on Murphy by a scribbler of my acquaintance, Tony Perry of the LA Times, himself a repeat visitor to heavy combat with Marines in Iraq:
CORONADO — A Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan will be awarded the Medal of Honor, the first such award for troops serving in Afghanistan and the first for a SEAL since the Vietnam War, the White House announced Thursday.
Lt. Michael P. Murphy, 29, who had SEAL training here and was assigned to a SEAL team in Hawaii, was killed in June 2005 during a mission in the Hindu Kush mountains to find a key Taliban leader.
Ambushed by insurgents, Murphy’s four-man SEAL team engaged in a fierce firefight and was in danger of being overrun.
Although he was wounded, Murphy risked his life to save fellow SEALs and then maneuvered into an open position to send out an emergency call and to continue firing at the enemy. While making the call, he was hit again.
Only one of the SEALs on the team survived. Eight other SEALs and eight soldiers aboard a MH-47 Chinook helicopter sent to rescue Murphy’s team also were killed when the craft was brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade.
The incident was the worst single-day loss of life for Navy Special Warfare personnel since World War II.
“Mike Murphy was a true warrior, a true leader. No one cared more about his men than he did,” said a SEAL officer who asked to be identified only as Sean. Because their missions are secret, SEALs prefer to remain anonymous.
President Bush will present the Medal of Honor to Murphy’s parents on Oct. 22 at the White House.
Only two other military personnel — Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham and Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith — have been awarded the nation’s highest honor for bravery for actions undertaken since Bush sent troops into Afghanistan in 2001. Both of those awards were for bravery in Iraq and were posthumous.
Dunham rolled on a grenade and sacrificed himself to save his fellow Marines. Smith led 16 combat engineers against about 100 attacking Republican Guard, manning a .50 cal under heavy fire until he was killed. He killed most of the Iraqis in the process and prevented them for overrunning a nearby headquarters and aid station area.
Murphy’s story is told by team member Marcus Luttrell in “Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10,” which I read a couple of weeks ago. Luttrell describes unquestionable bravery and hard fighting. Four men, SEAL snipers, were inserted deep in Taliban country to identify and kill a Taliban leader. It sounds like and proved to be enough to get into trouble, not enough to get out.
The SEALs were surprised by some goatherds. They opted to let the goatherds go rather than kill them or try to hold them. The Taliban showed up shortly afterward. The SEALs fought hard, taking a heavy toll of a determined enemy, but as a practical matter were unable to maintain once compromised. Early on in the fight, Luttrell suggests that if they had had 12, they could have held.
For the four SEALs, it was a fallback under heavy fire down the side of a mountain as they looked for a defensible position but kept getting flanked. Murphy was killed when he went out into open ground, exposing himself to fire as he tried to get a signal to call in help. The other two, Matthew Axelson and Danny Dietz, kept fighting after being mortally wounded but were dead by the time Luttrell describes being blown by an RPG into a gully, and crawling, climbing, running for seven miles until he was found some Afghans who quite bravely decided to grant him sanctuary. He describes the discussion he witnesses but can’t understand, as they decide whether to protect him or let the Taliban have him. There follows a highly unusual series of interactions with the Taliban, who manage to lay hands on him at one point but can’t take him or kill him because they know they can’t violate the tribal sanctuary rules, or they are done with the local tribes. Unfortunately, due to Luttrell’s admittedly limited understanding of the situation, we don’t get to find out exactly what was behind the Afghans’ decision to protect him, nor do we find out what happened to them in the end as a result. The lead Afghan behind the decision to save him leaves with him, however, unable to stay and choosing to serve the Americans and the Afghan government. It’s a remarkable story that Luttrell tells emotionally. Watching helicopters fly around looking for survivors, he eventually gets off a signal that brings in an element of 20 Rangers to pick him up after a dramatic standoff with a sizeable Taliban force.
Topics: Afghanistan, courage, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:30 pm Comments (5) on Saturday, October 13, 2007
5 Responses to “Medal of Honor”
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October 14th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Vale, LT Murphy. I’d say you really earned the MOH.
October 14th, 2007 at 12:07 am
I suppose it is fruitless to ask why we haven’t gotten these stories, and the very many others, in the last six years. The fact the the NYTs didn’t give so much as a mention to this one says it all.
October 14th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Cuomo, Kurtz revel in media’s ability to push antiwar agenda:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2007/10/10/abcs-cuomo-marvels-media-ability-turn-u-s-against-iraq
October 14th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Inasmuch as the NYTimes has fallen on hard times in both circulation and ad revenues and George Soros is a billionaire with money to spend promoting his anti-American agenda, do you suppose . . .nah, couldn’t happen.
October 14th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Another straw in the windiness of the NYT? This is a remark from a small canadian blog, ‘fivefeetofury.’ And ’smalldeadanimals’ is another canadian blog, based in Saskatchewan…
“…Believe it or not, the New York Times link to me yesterday prompted only one (angry) email. It also generated one-fifth of the traffic I normally get from a link from Small Dead Animals. Interpret all that as you will. ”
(both these blogs have been praised by Mark Steyn; and ‘fivefeetoffury’ has had great things to say about the poverty stricken Frosts who have no insurance…)