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Editorial: Selfless Marine earned the Medal of Honor

There are few things more selfless than covering a live hand grenade to save your buddies.

If history has ever offered a virtually automatic path to the Medal of Honor, that’s it.

At least, it was.

Since 2001, President Bush has authorized five Medals of Honor for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. In three of those instances, the award went to a soldier, sailor and Marine who sacrificed themselves for their comrades and dived on a grenade.

Sgt. Rafael Peralta smothered a grenade with his body during a bloody house-clearing operation in Fallujah. Peralta, an infantryman with 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, was shot during an intense firefight with insurgents as his unit attempted to clear sections of the city.

Lying on the floor of that Iraqi house, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head, Peralta saw an enemy grenade land near his face. The other Marines in the house saw it, too, and watched their wounded teammate offer what remained of his own life in sacrifice for them.

“Without hesitation and with complete disregard for his own personal safety, Sergeant Peralta reached out and pulled the grenade to his body, absorbing the brunt of the blast and shielding fellow Marines only a few feet away,” reads his citation, not for a Medal of Honor, but for a Navy Cross.

The difference is a matter of perception. In dispute is whether Peralta’s wounds would have prevented him from intentionally committing the act. The Marine Corps — the stingiest of the services when it comes to awards — decisively concluded the action warranted the Medal of Honor. Its investigators say Peralta took the grenade at center mass, and eyewitnesses say he pulled it there on purpose.

But a few others, unnamed and not present for the heroic act, argue absurdly that the whole thing was reflex, accident or even misinterpreted by the witnesses.

But if it were an accident, why does Peralta merit the Navy Cross? Why does the citation read as if it were done on purpose?

Things happen, or they don’t. It can’t be both ways.

The Defense Department brass took the unprecedented step of seeking outside advice from military and forensic experts to make its determination. Their inconclusive opinions somehow trumped eyewitness accounts, the Corps’ investigation, logic and common sense.

The Pentagon tried unusually hard to prove that Peralta wasn’t worthy. Perhaps because his head wound may have resulted from friendly fire, the “Pat Tillman Effect.”

Perhaps it’s because Peralta was born in Mexico and came to this country illegally, joining the Marine Corps the day he received his green card. Only after enlisting did he become a U.S. citizen.

Or perhaps it’s because we have forgotten that the Medal of Honor, revered though it may be, was created to be given. Out of love. Out of respect. With heavy hearts and enduring gratitude.

By trying to read the mind of a Marine who died defending his Marine brothers, and questioning the recollections and motivations of those who bore witness, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has reduced the prestigious Navy Cross to a mere consolation prize. The Peralta family isn’t even sure they’ll accept it on their Marine’s behalf.

Could all 3,467 MoHs issued over the past 146 years stand up to similar scrutiny? No.

This decision was wrong. Gates should reverse course and do what’s right. If he doesn’t, a successor will. Sgt. Rafael Peralta gave his life for his buddies. He earned the Medal of Honor.

He just hasn’t been awarded it. Yet.