Free Republic

The house of San Juan City Councilor Ritchie Peralte is cordoned off by police after the reported robbery attempt by members of suspected Akyat-Bahay gang members on Friday Morning. The 2 would be robbers failed to take away any cash from Peralta's home as one of them was shot dead by a member of his household. (Francis T. Wakefield) Two suspected Akyat-Bahay gang members attempted to rob Friday morning the house of a San Juan City Councilor, but failed to take any cash or other items. Senior Supt. Joselito M. Daniel, chief of the San Juan City Police Station,...

A DEA agent has died in an apparent robbery attempt in Colombia, U.S. Ambassador Michael McKinley said Friday. Colombian authorities said the American agent was stabbed four times.

A Marine who was killed after his unconscious body fell on a live grenade during the Iraq War will not receive a posthumous Medal of Honor, it was revealed today. Sgt Rafael Peralta was 25 years old when he fell on the grenade in Fallouja, Iraq in 2004. Though he perished, his body shielded other American soldiers and saved the lives of other Marines. The Pentagon told Rep. Duncan Hunter it supports the decision of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who honored Sgt. Rafael Peralta with the Navy Cross instead of the military´s highest honor.

Review board should approve Medal of Honor for Sgt. PeraltaU.S. Marine CorpsSgt. Rafael Peralta was a hero who was denied full recognition for his acts of valor. This injustice should be reversed. Sgt. Peralta was in the thick of the fight during the bloody Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004. While clearing a house, his unit came under close-quarters fire from insurgents, and Sgt. Peralta was felled by a round to the back of his head. While he was lying wounded, a grenade thrown by fleeing insurgents landed near him. “Without hesitation and with complete disregard for his own...

The Navy's weighing a decision to name a cargo ship now under construction after labor activist Cesar Chavez has drawn sharp criticism from one veteran lawmaker who says that a military war hero should receive the honor instead. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he understands the Navy's desire to honor Hispanic leaders, but the Navy may want to skip the politically divisive names and opt for an outstanding service member. "If this decision were about recognizing the Hispanic community's contribution to our nation, many other names come to mind, including Marine Corps Sergeant Rafael...

“I didn’t know anything about medals,” Peralta told me. But she said that the idea that her son would be remembered as a national hero slowly became a source of comfort to her. The Peralta family, which includes Rafael’s three siblings, moved to San Diego from Tijuana, Mexico, when Rafael was a teenager, and he joined the Marines the first moment he could legally do so, on the same morning he got his green card. Though the Peralta parents spoke little English and felt like foreigners in Southern California, Rafael “really loved this country” and loved being a Marine, Peralta...

Sgt Rafael Peralta's story of sacrifice is one that was closely followed by Curt. Curt writes of this fellow Marine in 2004: I heard about this incident this morning on the way to work and got choked up. This Marine, a Mexican Immigrant who loved his new country so much he signed up to fight for it, placed his body on top of a grenade to save his buddies. Curt went on to do a series of posts on Rafael Peralta. This morning, I came across this heartbreaking NYTimes article chronicling the additional pain and circus ride Sgt. Peralta's mom...

The Peralta Community College District has settled a federal lawsuit over its punishment of two College of Alameda students who were praying on campus. The four-college district will pay $90,000 in legal fees to students Kandy Kyriacou and Ojoma Omaga, who were threatened with suspension after they prayed in class and after Kyriacou prayed with a sick instructor in the teacher's office. The district also agreed to rescind its written warnings to the students, sent in late 2007 and early 2008. The settlement gained final approval Wednesday from U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston. Omaga said she was not surprised...

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' decision to award Sgt. Rafael Peralta a Navy Cross instead of a Medal of Honor makes no sense. Either Peralta grabbed a grenade to protect his fellow Marines or he did not. If Peralta grabbed the grenade then he deserves a Medal of Honor. If he did not grab the grenade than there is no reason to award him a Navy Cross. Peralta was born in Mexico and joined the Marines as soon as he received a green card. He subsequently became a U.S. citizen while serving in the Marines. On November 15, 2004, while...

September 18, 2008 For G-d's Sake, Give This Deceased American Hero His Medal! By Debbie Schlussel Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta is a role model for all Americans, whether they are immigrants like him or native born. He made the ultimate sacrifice, giving his life to save those of his fellow Marines. Sadly, nitpickers in our military are denying him and his grieving family the Medal of Honor. It's a travesty. This late patriot deserves the honor. He earned it in blood and gutted limbs. This is the kind of one-time illegal alien I wish we had more of in America....

According to the secretary of the Navy, Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta gave his life to save his comrades in the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004, grabbing a hostile grenade, pulling it to his body and absorbing the brunt of the blast. President Bush later praised Peralta as a hero. But a decision by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates not to recommend him for the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military honor, stirred an outcry yesterday by his family and Marines whose lives he saved. Peralta instead will be posthumously awarded the second-highest award for valor in combat, the...

Service announces that Sgt. Rafael Peralta will instead get Navy Cross CAMP PENDLETON ---- A Marine nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor and singled out by President Bush for throwing his bullet-riddled body on a grenade to protect fellow Marines in Iraq in 2004 won't be receiving the award, his mother said Wednesday. Rosa Peralta said Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Richard Nantonski informed her Wednesday morning that her son, Sgt. Rafael "Rafa" Peralta, of the Hawaii-based 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, will instead be awarded the Navy Cross. Download the citation Natonski indicated that a committee reviewing the nomination...

Sgt. Rafael Peralta told his men he would die for them. Then he went out and proved it. Peralta was leading five Marines on a house-clearing mission Nov. 15, 2004, in the second week of a battle for the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, Iraq. As he entered a room near the back of one home, gunfire hit him in the face and chest, leaving him barely breathing on the floor. Then a grenade rolled out of the room, landing a foot away from him. Peralta pulled it to his chest so he could shield his men from the blast. He...

May 18, 2007 Sgt. Rafael Peralta, American hero Thomas Lifson Saturday at 7 PM Eastern Time, the History Channel (as well as History Channel en Español) will be premiering a documentary on Sgt. Rafael Peralta, a hero of the Battle of Fallujah in 2004. Sgt. Peralta gave his life in the noblest fashion imaginable: sacrificing himself to save his fellow Soldiers. I learned of the program and more about Sgt. Peralta from the Hispanic media blog Clemenseando, from which the following information comes. Entering a house in Fallujah as the first Soldier of his platoon, Sgt. Peralta was immediately shot...

Long lists of soldiers killed in wartime can have great emotional power, as anyone who has been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington can attest. However dignified and moving, though, in the end such a listing can really describe them only as a group: They wore the uniform and died in the service of their country. But who they were individually, how they served, what they left behind — that is more than a catalogue of names can convey. So here is the story behind just one of the names ''Nightline" will enumerate on Memorial Day: Sergeant Rafael Peralta...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A 20-year-old man suspected of firing at a vehicle in an alleged road rage incident was arrested, California Highway Patrol officials said Thursday. Juan Peralta fired a revolver, striking a truck twice, the CHP said. The Dec. 11 shooting allegedly occurred in Lynwood on the transition road from the Glenn Anderson Freeway (105) to the southbound Long Beach Freeway (710). Peralta was arrested Tuesday and booked for investigation of attempted murder. He was held on $500,000 bail. It was not immediately clear whether anyone was injured in the shooting or whether Peralta was involved in other...

It was in the third week of the Iraq war, as U.S. troops barreled toward Baghdad, that Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith's band of combat engineers found themselves on the wrong end of 10-to-1 odds. In a walled courtyard not far from Baghdad's airport, Smith and his 15 lightly armed soldiers were trying to hold off 100 Special Republican Guard fighters wielding rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and AK-47 assault rifles. When wounds downed the U.S. crew of the armored vehicle bearing the Americans' sole heavy machine gun, Smith scrambled into the breach. In the gunner's hatch of that personnel carrier, with...

SAN DIEGO — Sgt. Rafael Peralta is dead, but the story of his sacrifice to save fellow Marines will live long in Marine Corps lore. In the fierce battle for the Iraqi town of Fallujah, Peralta, with gunshot wounds to his head and body, reached out and grabbed a grenade hurled by an insurgent, cradling it to his body to save others from the blast. The explosion in the back room of a house injured one Marine, but four others managed to scramble to safety. Peralta, 25, an immigrant from Mexico who enlisted the day he got his green-card work...

SGT PERALTA WAS A ASWSOME PERSON WHO I HAD THE CHANCE TO MEET. WHAT HE DID THERE IS NO WORDS TO DISCRIBE IT. YOU WILL BE MISSED PERALTA FROM ANOTHER FELLOW SGT

FALLUJAH, Iraq (Dec. 02, 2004) -- "You’re still here, don’t forget that. Tell your kids, your grandkids, what Sgt. Peralta did for you and the other Marines today." As a combat correspondent, I was attached to Company A, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment for Operation Al Fajr, to make sure the stories of heroic actions and the daily realities of battle were told. On this day, I found myself without my camera. With the batteries dead, I decided to leave the camera behind and live up to the ethos "every Marine a rifleman," by volunteering to help clear the fateful...