Ross McGinnis was memorialized Sunday, December 17, 2006 in his home town of Knox, Pennsylvania.

The Derrick
KNOX - One soldier’s rare act of bravery is continuing to reverberate throughout the community as his family prepares to honor him at a memorial service Sunday afternoon.

This week, Pfc. Ross McGinnis, 19, was posthumously awarded the Silver Star - the third highest award for bravery - from the U.S. military for actions that led to his death on Dec. 4.

The Keystone High School Class of 2005 graduate is now being recommended to receive the Medal of Honor for that same incident in which he dove onto a grenade that was thrown into his vehicle.

The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest award for valor.

“It is sad that this young man’s heroic death has suddenly made the situation in Iraq brutally real for so many in this small community,” said teacher Frankie Sheatz.

State Rep. Fred McIlhattan, a Knox resident, said all Pennsylvania flags under Gov. Ed Rendell’s office will be flown at half-staff on Sunday in recognition of McGinnis’ sacrifice. He is also encouraging anyone else who has a state flag to fly it at half-staff that day.

A military service is scheduled at 2 p.m. Sunday at St. Paul Lutheran Church near Knox.

Those who live and work in the area are showing their support for the soldier’s family in various ways. Small American flags and ribbons adorn the downtown streets in Knox Borough.

McGinnis’ classmates are putting together a scrapbook for his family, and donations are being received toward a memorial marker.

There is a “new patriotic spirit here,” said Angela Matthews, who graduated a year after McGinnis. Matthews is now an AmeriCorps member at Keystone SMILES in Knox. She said she had a couple classes with McGinnis, the son of Thomas and Romayne McGinnis.

He was in the gunner’s hatch of the vehicle when a grenade was hurled into the Humvee. Military accounts show he shouted a warning to four other soldiers in the vehicle and then hurled himself onto the grenade shortly before it detonated. All four soldiers were injured in the blast.

The E-4 soldier’s promotion to that rank came on the day he died.

“I think it’s very heroic,” said Matthews. “It’s really awesome. I didn’t see that side of him” in school.

The high school’s entrance signboard says, “We remember our hero - Ross McGinnis.”

Gary Altman of Beaver Township is among many who say they are inspired by the soldier’s commitment to his country.

McGinnis enlisted in the Army at the age of 17.

“He knew what he wanted to do,” said Altman.

History teacher Bill Irwin recalls McGinnis’ passion in his senior year after seeing videos of the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, D.C. “He was an intensely focused young man and knew even then that he wanted a career in the military,” said Irwin.

He returned to the high school after his military graduation.

“The pride he felt in his uniform was obvious in his demeanor and attitude,” said Irwin. The teacher said he was quiet in class, “but never hesitated to speak up if he felt the need to voice his opinion on a subject.” “His death is a tragic loss for our school and community,” Irwin said.

Sheatz, who teaches French, remembers McGinnis as “always pleasant, polite and smiling.”

He was the nephew of Roxanne Miller, who is the director at the Knox Free Library. “Everybody is just very proud,” she said. The community-wide support for the family, for troops overseas and for those returning home “has been heartwarming,” said Miller.

Pittsburg News Tribune
McGinnis, remembered as a tall, lanky kid who preferred humor, adventure and service to his country over the classroom, was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, the Army’s third-highest honor for bravery, and the Purple Heart, which were presented to his father, Thomas, and mother, Romayne.

Fellow soldiers have nominated him for the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award.

Hundreds of soldiers, veterans, state troopers, friends and residents stood outside the small church during the service. At 1:55 p.m., a silver and black Cadillac hearse bearing a casket with McGinnis’ ashes pulled into the church lot, followed by a lengthy procession of cars bearing his parents, sisters, grandmother and other family members.

As a bagpiper played, military pallbearers unloaded the flag-draped coffin and carried it inside the church. A minister then led the mourners with the entrance hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

Church leaders asked mourners to pray for McGinnis’ squadmates who were wounded in the attack. In the church basement, nearly 200 mourners watched the proceedings on a widescreen television set up for the occasion.

McGinnis graduated last year from Keystone High School and worked a brief stint at McDonald’s before enlisting in the Army. In Iraq, he was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Infantry Division. The division is based in Schweinfurt, Germany. After getting to Iraq in July, McGinnis manned the .50-caliber machine gun mounted in a turret on a Humvee. It was a job he loved, friends said.

Pictures of McGinnis’ life lined the walls of the church basement. Snapshots showed the young McGinnis making faces with his two sisters after his high school graduation ceremony in the school gym. Another caught him as a baby perched on a kitchen counter. Others showed him on combat patrol in Iraq. In every picture, a wide smile creased McGinnis’ face.

Former classmates and McDonald’s colleagues Todd Culbertson, Mike Myers, Jake Kinnan and Doug Painter spoke warmly of their friend’s expansive sense of humor and infectious optimism. “He had a real strong sense of humor,” Culbertson said. “He was always dancing at work, even though it was McDonald’s.”

Culbertson’s friends agreed. “He was always trying to make things funny. Everybody is sad, but at the same time honored to have known him,” Kinnan said.