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| Spc. Ross McGinnis |
Specialist Ross McGinnis was
just an average young man when he decided to sign up for the United States
Army’s delayed entry program before he even graduated from high school. He was
deployed to Iraq in August of 2006. Three months later, he committed an act
that was anything but average. He sacrificed his own life to save his fellow
soldiers. He was only nineteen years old. This deed was the ultimate act of
kindness, bravery and selflessness and for this he was awarded the highest honor
that can be given to a member of the United States Armed Forces, the Medal of
Honor.
Ross McGinnis was born on June
14, 1987 in Meadville, Pennsylvania to Tom and Romayne McGinnis. The day of his
birth was the 206th birthday of the United States Army. When Ross
was three years old, his family moved to Knox, Pennsylvania, where he was
raised with his two sisters, Becky and Katie. Ross joined the army’s delayed
entry program when he was seventeen and went into basic training right out of
high school. He was deployed with his unit a little over a year later.
On December 4, 2006, PFC Ross
McGinnis was manning the M2 .50 caliber machine gun on a Humvee while
patrolling in Adhamiyah, Northeast Baghdad, Iraq when an insurgent threw a
grenade at the Humvee from a nearby rooftop. PFC McGinnis saw the grenade and
tried to deflect it, but was unsuccessful; it landed inside the vehicle. He
shouted “grenade” to warn the other soldiers in the Humvee of the danger, but
Ross was the only man who was in a position to get out of the Humvee quickly.
Instead, he dropped down from his position and trapped the grenade between his
body and the radio mount in the Humvee.
When the grenade went off, it
tore apart the young man’s side and back and injured the four other men that were
in the vehicle. All four of the other soldiers survived, but PFC Ross McGinnis
was killed instantly. The convoy that they were traveling with managed to fight
off the insurgents in the area and they all made it back to the FOB. Ross
McGinnis was promoted to Specialist later that day; his CO had planned to
promote him before he had died. He was buried at the Arlington National
Cemetery on March 23, 2006.
On June 2, 2008, Spc. Ross
McGinnis was awarded the Medal of Honor “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity
at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as an
M2 .50 caliber Machine Gunner, 1st Platoon, C Company, 1st
Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, in connection with combat
operations against an armed enemy in Adhamiyah, Northeast, Baghdad, Iraq, on 4
December 2006.” His parents received the
medal for him during a ceremony at the White House.
Sources
The Story of Spc. Ross A.
McGinnis, retrieved 8/30/09, army.mil/medalofhonor/mcginnis/profile/index.html
Tan, Michelle, Army PFC. Ross A.
McGinnis, retrieved 8/30/09, militarycity.com/valor/2411963.html
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