Mike Monsoor, a Navy Seal - the training, discipline, dedication, and love it takes to be a hero!

What sets the Navy Seals apart? We often have a kind of a strange fascination with this elite group. Maybe it's the training, the brotherhood created, or maybe it's the mental and physical toughness. But above all, it's the men!

Michael Monsoor is one of those men! 

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Petty Officer Second Class Michael A. Monsoor was recently awarded the Silver Star for his actions in Ramadi, Iraq on May 9. With bullets flying, he and a fellow team member pulled a wounded comrade to safety.

He has also recently been nominated for a further award, for a deed that would be his last.

On September 29, 2006 Michael and four of his fellow Navy SEALs were in a rooftop structure in Ramadi, Iraq providing sniper security for U.S. and Iraqi forces.

On that fateful morning, Michael had been near the door in the small room that he and his four companions occupied.

Suddenly an object flew through the air and hit him in the chest. What was it? His eyes darted rapidly to the cylindrical object on the floor beside him. It was a grenade, and his gaze remained fastened and intense on the small menace.

He responded without hesitating – he threw himself on the ground covering the grenade with his body and thus shielding his fellow SEALs from the blast. “He undoubtedly saved mine and the others SEALs’ lives,” said his comrade, a 28-year-old lieutenant who suffered shrapnel wounds to both legs.

 
Monsoor “was just a fun-loving guy,” said another 26-year-old who went through the grueling 29-week SEAL training with him. “Always got something funny to say, always got a little mischievous look on his face.” Other members of the special force remember “Mikey” as a friend, a professional. He was a man who lived out a silent dedication to his beliefs.

Why did he do it? Michael Monsoor gave something that he would never be able to take back. On September 29, he made an irreversible decision in a matter of milliseconds.

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends” (Jn 15:13).

During Mike Monsoor's, SEALs lined the pallbearers route. As Mike's coffin passed, each SEAL, removed his gold Trident pin and slapped it into the wooden coffin. The gold inlay was a fitting send-off for the hero.

-Information taken from Associated Press, October 14, 2006.