Iraq battle yields Navy
Cross, 4 Silver Stars
By
Gidget Fuentes
- Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jan 8, 2009 14:52:10 EST
OCEANSIDE, Calif. — The
Marine Corps will present the Navy Cross on Thursday
to a junior grenadier credited with saving the lives
of 10 fellow infantrymen and decimating a force of
insurgents during a deadly 2005 firefight inside an
Iraqi home.
Three other members of his
infantry squad with 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, will
receive Silver Stars during the ceremony at Camp
Pendleton, Calif., according to 1st Lt. Curtis
Williamson, a 1st Marine Division spokesman. A
fourth Silver Star will be presented to the family
of their former platoon commander, who died in the
battle against 21 heavily armed insurgents in
western Anbar province.
Navy Secretary Donald C.
Winter recently approved the Navy Cross for Lance
Cpl. Joshua A. Mooi, a grenadier assigned to Fox
Company’s 2nd Platoon. The Navy Cross is the
nation’s second-highest award for combat valor,
after the Medal of Honor.
On Nov. 16, 2005, Mooi’s
battalion was targeting al-Qaida operatives in New
Ubaydi, along the Euphrates River. The missions were
part of operation “Steel Curtain.”
Mooi’s platoon came under
attack from insurgents firing automatic weapons and
lobbing grenades from several fortified homes,
officials said. Mooi fought back and helped recover
four Marines hit by enemy fire.
Six times, he “willingly
entered an ambush site to pursue the enemy and
extricate injured Marines,” his award citation
states. “Often alone in his efforts, he continued to
destroy the enemy and rescue wounded Marines until
his rifle was destroyed by enemy fire and he was
ordered to withdraw.”
His “relentless and
courageous actions eliminated at least four
insurgents while permitting the immediate care and
evacuation of more than a dozen Marines who lay
critically or mortally wounded,” it states.
To date. 16 Marines and one
Navy corpsman have been awarded the Navy Cross for
their combat actions in Iraq.
Winter also approved Silver
Stars for:
• 2nd Lt. Donald R.
McGlothlin, the platoon commander who was killed as
he laid suppressive fire against insurgents in an
effort to shield the evacuation of wounded Marines
from the house, his citation states.
• Staff Sgt. Robert W.
Homer, 2nd Platoon’s sergeant, who fended off enemy
grenades, small-arms fire and serious shrapnel
wounds to lob suppressive fire and help treat and
evacuate wounded Marines before he was ordered
aboard a medevac helicopter, according to the
citation.
• Cpl. Javier Alvarez, a
squad leader who directed several magazines of
suppressive fire as Marines tried to aid and
evacuate the wounded and who himself was seriously
wounded after he grabbed an enemy grenade before it
detonated, the citation states.
• Hospital Corpsman 3rd
Class Jesse P. Hickey, the platoon corpsman who
saved several Marines’ lives, at times running into
the kill zone through enemy automatic fire to treat
severely wounded members despite suffering injuries
to one of his arms, according to his citation.