Take the case of one Marine, Sean A. Stokes of California. On Wednesday, his 25th birthday, he will be awarded the Silver Star for courage demonstrated during the hand-to-hand, street-fighting nightmare that was the Battle of Fallujah in November 2004.The honor will be presented posthumously.
Stokes was killed by an IED blast on July 30, 2007, while on security detail during his third deployment to Iraq. His longtime friend Brad Adams also was injured, but survived. Stokes died in the arms of the battalion commander whose life he had saved.
Stokes' heroics on the battlefield were amply recorded in Patrick O'Donnell's book We Were One and the History Channel documentary Shootout: Fallujah. Equally impressive was his struggle to remain in uniform, to stay and fight beside his fellow Marines.
Being a Marine was a longtime dream of Stokes', and he enlisted after high school, in the wake of 9/11. But early on, he screwed up. A family emergency arose, and he went home to help - without permission. When he returned, a drug test detected marijuana in his system. He was busted from corporal to private, threatened with an early discharge, and attached to the Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment, which was headed for Iraq. It was a chance to prove himself. He did.
During 12 days of urban combat in Fallujah, Lima Company's First Platoon fought house by house. Stokes was on point, kicking in the doors, never knowing whether an ambush awaited.
He described the job in Shootout: "At each house I said a prayer, 'Please, God, get me out of this one.' When I come out of the house, I thank him, light up a cigarette and move on to the next one."
He was wounded twice. The first time was in an alley when his platoon was driven back by a grenade assault. Stokes took some shrapnel - again, with Brad Adams - but he kept up return fire, allowing his buddies to pull back safely. Stokes hid his wounds, fearing a mandatory evacuation. He wouldn't abandon his platoon.
Days later, First Platoon was entering yet another house. Lance Cpl. Philip Peterson later told O'Donnell: "There were four open doors, a stairwell, and one closed door. It was a black door on a black wall. It was the creepiest looking thing I've ever seen. Stokes and I looked at this door, and we both said: 'We'll save that one for last.' "
But the door opened and an AK47 poked out, firing at knee level. The Marines returned fire, and as the door was shut, a grenade rolled out. The blast sent the 6-foot Stokes flying. "It was like being hit with a bowling ball," he said later. There was more enemy fire, more grenades. The Marines scrambled to get out, but another blast knocked Stokes down again. Once outside, the platoon noticed he wasn't with them.
He was on the floor of the house, firing back at an enemy that was closing in. He ran out of ammo. The enemy was still firing, still lobbing grenades his way. Lance Cpl. Heath Kramer finally crashed through a door behind Stokes, who was woozy and disoriented from the succession of blasts, and dragged him outside.
Earning two Purple Hearts and the admiration of his peers wasn't enough to clear Stokes' record. A second tour of Iraq brought a promotion, but the threat of discharge remained. He was offered a seven-month extension, with a third deployment, but after that he would be out.
Gary Stokes advised his son to turn down the extension. "You done your part, buddy," he told Sean. "You don't need to do any more."
He was taken aback by Sean's angry, vehement response. "I have to support all those guys," Sean told his dad. "We have to support them all. I have to make sure I hold up my end of the bargain as long as I can."
Stokes didn't want his family to worry, so he misled them about the deployment. He said he would be aboard ship, probably in the Mediterranean. Gary Stokes didn't learn that Sean was actually in Iraq until the knock on the door at 6:30 a.m. on July 30.
"Following your dreams shouldn't kill you, but it killed Sean. It's really just tragic," says O'Donnell, who befriended Stokes and helped draft the Silver Star recommendation.
Neither a medal, nor a nation's thanks, can compensate for such a loss or fully honor such devotion and self-sacrifice. At best, we can promise to never forget, and determine to support all those guys, to hold up our end of the bargain as long as we can.