By MY WRITE BY BILL BAUER
I’ve been reading the “military obituaries” since Santa Monica Police officer and U.S. Marine Corps Reservist, Major Ricardo A. “Rick” Crocker was killed in Al-Anbar province in Iraq on May 26, 2005.
An “obit” in the Dec. 10, 2006, Los Angeles Times caught my eye.
“Ross A. McGinnis, 19, of Knox, PA; private first class, Army. McGinnis was killed Monday when he smothered a grenade that was thrown into his Humvee in Baghdad,saving the lives of four other soldiers in the vehicle...”
I had to find out more about this young hero. So, I researched the Pittsburgh newspapers and the Clarion News. Knox is located in the rural Appalachians, northeast of Pittsburgh.
An article by Milan Simonich in the Dec. 16 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette began: “They will gather tomorrow in Clarion County to celebrate a lackluster student, a scrawny teenager, a brave soldier and a selfless man. At 19, Army Pfc. Ross McGinnis was all of those.” I was hooked.
According to the article, “McGinnis died when he threw himself on a grenade that an insurgent flung from a rooftop into the Humvee that carried five soldiers who were on patrol in Baghdad.McGinnis,who was atop the Humvee in the gunner’s hatch, saw the grenade coming and tried to bat it away. He missed and the device landed inside the vehicle.” “‘An average man would have leapt out of the gunner’s cupola to safety,’ the Army said in its official account of the life-or-death episode. ‘Pfc. McGinnis decided to stay with his crew. Unhesitatingly and with complete disregard for his own life... he threw his back over the grenade to pin it between his body and the truck’s radio mount.’”
It detonated, piercing Pfc. McGinnis’ body armor, killing him instantly.
Even though he turned himself into a human shield, the force of the blast was still powerful enough to badly injure another soldier, who is in a military hospital facing a months-long recovery. Shrapnel hit a third soldier, tearing a ball of flesh from his shoulder. All four survived because of Pfc. McGinnis’ sacrifice.
The Army already has awarded Pfc.
McGinnis the Silver Star and his captain has nominated him for the Medal of Honor (America’s highest award for combat valor), which could take two years for the Pentagon to award. Amazingly, only one U.S. serviceman has received the Medal of Honor since the war on terrorism began in 2001, although a handful of others are under consideration.
Ross wasn’t the best student. His parents told the local media their son wasn’t an academic, but described him as “hands on.” Indifferent about his studies at Keystone Junior/Senior High School in Knox, he had signed up for the Army’s delayed enlistment program when he turned 17 and pledged to enlist right after graduation, say news reports.
“I know medals never crossed his mind,” said his father, Tom McGinnis. “He was always about friendships and relationships. He just took that to the ultimate this time.”
Although he was thinking about working on high performance sports cars and even took classes in auto mechanics at the Clarion County Career Center, the kid who liked video games and mountain biking left for basic training a week after receiving his high school diploma in June 2005.
“There were doubts about whether he would even qualify physically for service. McGinnis was a skinny kid, almost frail. He was 6 feet tall, but never filled out. He weighed only 136 pounds the day he died,” said the Post-Gazette.
“His unit, Company C, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, headed to Kuwait in July. It moved into Iraq a couple weeks later. Once in Iraq, the smalltown teenager who had always been something of a comedian, and a gangly boy with style and bite, took on a different, more serious personality as a soldier — and the youngest member of his unit.”
Even after another young soldier in his company died a painful death in a military burn unit after being injured in a roadside bomb, Pfc. McGinnis continued to believe in his cause. He told his family he thought he was fighting so a society (Iraq) could be free.
McGinnis was cremated and will eventually be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
“Instead of doing something for us, do something for a soldier or for a veteran. Tell them it’s from Pfc. Ross McGinnis,” his father said.
And pray for peace.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 25, 2006. Read the original PDF.