President Bush awarded the military’s highest honor posthumously on Monday to a 19-year-old soldier who was killed in Iraq after falling on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers. Private McGinnis, of Knox, Pa., was killed in a Baghdad neighborhood on Dec. 4, 2006, when a grenade was thrown into the gunner’s hatch of the Humvee in which he was riding. Mr. Bush noted that Private McGinnis had enough time to jump out and save himself but instead dropped into the hatch and covered the grenade with his own body, absorbing the fragments. He was killed instantly. All four of his fellow soldiers were saved. |
Four Medals of Honor have been awarded in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. All have been posthumous.
