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A New Yorker who died saving two other Marines by covering an Iraqi grenade with his helmet and blunting the blast with his body has been nominated for a Congressional Medal of Honor.

Cpl. Jason Dunham was commanding a checkpoint near Karbala on April 14 when a black-clad Iraqi leaped out of a car and grabbed him around the neck, according to the Marines. A strapping 6-foot-1 ex-jock, Dunham kneed the Iraqi in the chest and then both fell to the ground. It was then that he spotted the grenade in his attacker’s hand and called out a warning to the Marines rushing to his aid. His cry was cut short by the blast.

When the smoke cleared, Dunham was laying facedown in his own blood and his Kevlar helmet was shattered. The Marines who tried to help him also were wounded, but they were alive. “He is a genuine American hero,” said a Marine officer at Camp Pendleton in Twentynine Palms, Calif., where Dunham’s unit, the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, is based. Dunham is the first U.S. soldier to be nominated for the nation’s highest honor for valor in the Iraq war.

If President Bush approves the award, Dunham’s heroism would be the first act of bravery recognized with the medal since Gary Gordon and Randy Shugart, two Army Delta Force soldiers, died fighting in Somalia. They were posthumously honored with the award 11 years ago.

Mortally wounded when grenade fragments pierced his skull, Dunham lingered for six more days before he died at a military hospital in Bethesda, Md. His parents, Deb and Dan Dunham of Scio, N.Y., were at his side. He was just 22.

Since then, Dunham’s legend has grown and the drive to award him the medal is being spearheaded by his battalion commander, Lt. Col. Matthew Lopez.

Deb Dunham said she did not want to jinx her slain son’s chances by talking about the medal. “I’m aware of the nomination, and if Jason gets this honor, please call me back,” she said. “But right now we’d like to close the door a bit and have a little privacy. We’re still mourning.”

Among those who have testified about Dunham’s bravery are the soldiers he helped save.

More than 1,000 people packed Scio’s high school gym for Dunham’s funeral. “I hope one day I could be half the hero he is,” childhood friend Dean Phillips wrote in an online tribute. “I hear there is a special place for heroes in heaven.”

A country boy, from the area I grew up in.

UPDATE:

More articles on this hero’s actions, and the hometown reaction.

Cpl. Jason Dunham of Scio in Allegany County died Thursday afternoon at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Md., according to local broadcast stations and newspapers. Dunham was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, Kilo Company based in Twentynine Palms, Calif. Confirmation of Dunham’s death by U.S. military officials was not immediately available Friday night.

Relatives say Jason Dunham never regained consciousness after sustaining a head injury from shrapnel in the Iraqi city of Karbala on April 14. Dunham was first taken to a Baghdad hospital in critical condition. He was moved to a hospital in Germany where his condition improved and moved recently to the Bethesda hospital, where his parents flew to be with him.

The eldest of four children, Dunham enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2000 after graduating from Scio Central School, 70 miles southeast of Buffalo. His father, Daniel Dunham, said Jason was scheduled to be out of the service in July. “We’re just proud of him, and we’re thankful for the people of Scio for being his friend and our friends,” Dan Dunham, an Air Force veteran, told WKBW-TV.

MilitaryCity.com

Dunham, 22, died just over a week ago from wounds he sustained April 14 in Iraq.

A report from the Marine Corps said Dunham was commanding a check point near Karbala when a man got out of a car and tried to flee. Dunham tackled the man, who then pulled a pin from a hand grenade. Dunham dove onto the grenade before it exploded, the Marines reported. Two other Marines were injured.

Dunham, with K Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, was remembered in Iraq on Thursday at a service attended by more than 500 Marines, sailors and soldiers, the Marines reported.

Dunham “never judged anyone and he never judged the people over there,” friend Justin Lambert said at Saturday’s funeral. “He was just doing his job. He’s going to be missed.”

As a long procession of cars and walkers accompanied the casket to the nearby cemetery, Scio residents sat on their porches and children lined the sidewalk. An American flag was draped above the highway. Dunham’s parents, carrying the tri-folded flag that had draped their eldest son’s coffin, and their three younger children were escorted by the Marines to an awaiting car. “The Marine Corps have really showed us how much this means to them,” said Cpl. Dunham’s father, Dan. “They’ve been very good to us.”

AP

Mourners Saturday filled one of Cpl. Jason Dunham’s favorite places – his high school gym – for the funeral of the Marine, who died in Iraq after using his own body to shield his men from an attacker’s grenade.

The gym, packed with more than 1,500 people, is the largest gathering space in the upstate New York town of Scio, where Dunham grew up. His casket rested beneath a basketball hoop.

Guardian U.K.