Looks like a Marine First Sgt, too....
Posted on 05/02/2006 9:13:19 AM PDT by Loud Mime
CAMP PENDLETON - He was shot seven times. Then 40 pieces of super-heated shrapnel melted into his flesh.
And at three different moments, in nanoseconds laced with adrenaline, confusion, sweat and blood, Marine Corps 1st Sgt. Bradley Kasal took account of his life.
Then he decided it would be OK if he died.
His decision earned him the Navy Cross on Monday.
--snip--
Now, after having suffered seven gunshots, Kasal decided to again put his life at risk.
He would use all of the available field dressings to help stop the bleeding of a gunshot wound suffered by a fellow Marine. He decided not to use any of the dressings for himself and instead "bleed out." It just made sense that one of them should survive.
Finally, the insurgent, knowing the injured Marines had no way out, lobbed a grenade into the room. Kasal saw the grenade, and using his own body as a shield, leapt onto his fellow Marine as the grenade exploded.
--snip--
You are an inspiration to every Marine," Maj. Gen. Michael Lehnert said to Kasal. Lehnert told the audience of more than 100 that the term "hero" is thrown around loosely in popular society.
But make no mistake he said, Kasal was the real thing.
"Marines past, present and future owe you a debt of gratitude."
Kasal said the most challenging aspect of the ordeal wasn't the 22 surgeries he endured or even fighting the opinions of doctors who suggested he should have his leg amputated.
Instead Kasal said the real pain was knowing the battle would go on without him.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
Looks like a Marine First Sgt, too....
Hey isn't that the same medal that Kerry got for killing a teenager and putting all of his men at risk?
Sounds fair to me.
Is that Kasel? I remember that story well - him exposing himself and dragging others to safety. "The rest of the story" in this article is even more compelling.
An extraordinary man/but an ordinary Marine. That's what it's all about.
The words do not exist to properly describe this Marine. The closest is GOD COUNTRY CORP. What a hell of man he is.
One of my uncles got the Navy Cross in WWII. I never knew until after I was grown and he was dead. I had to get the story from my dad.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Thanks for the photo. I'm dumbfounded at this man's story. To get hit and still help others is what heroism is all about. The Marine Corps is proud of him.
Poise under pressure to say the least.
God Bless this guy.
No...Kerry got a silver star for that.
The Navy Cross is the second highest commendation next to the Medal of Honor...IMHO, if I was his CO, I'd be processing the paperwork for his Medal of Honor, ASAP.
Yeah, your statement really brings it home doesn't it.
“I appreciate your interest in this issue and that the story and photo speak volumes about the courage and commitment of our deployed Marines,” McSweeney said Thursday. “I'm sorry to reinforce that CMC (Commandant, Marine Corps) and other members of HQMC do not offer comments of any kind on awards that are working their way through the system.”
Kasal joined the Marine Corps in 1984 from rural Afton, Iowa - population 941 - when he was fresh out of East Union High School and fresh off the family farm. Nineteen years later, he was a Marine first sergeant leading a hard-pressed company of infantrymen in a desperate fight for an Iraqi city named Fallujah, a place as foreign to most Americans as Iwo Jima was sixty years ago.
“I always wanted to be a Marine, to see the world and make a difference,” Kasal said in an interview this week.
Linda Haner, the deputy city clerk of Afton and someone who watched Kasal and his family grow up, remembers him as a nice boy who did well on the high school wrestling team. “He was quite athletic,” she said.
Haner said the whole town is proud of Kasal and all his brothers who served in the armed forces. Brother Jeff is a retired Army paratrooper who fought in Desert Storm with the 82nd Airborne and now works in Iraq for Halliburton; Kelly, who was in the Army four years and Kevin, who served four years as a Marine, are all known and respected around the Iowa town.
“If you could see all the yellow ribbons and all the red, white and blue ribbons you would understand about this place. People around here are proud of the boys in the service and what they are doing,” Haner added.
Currently Kasal isn’t doing too much except recovering. The 38-year-old bachelor is confined to a wheelchair while he endures a painful medical procedure to put his right leg back together. His lower leg is connected to a metal device called a halo brace that is full of pins and screws that doctors manipulate each day to stretch his battered lower leg a millimeter at a time, trying to extend it to the length it used to be before an insurgent blew it in half with a Kalashnikov assault rifle." Link
Didn't you use to get the MOH for throwing yourself on a grenade to save other soldiers lives.
1st Sgt. Kasal is THE US MARINE.
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