Fallen MoH recipient’s helmet lives on - Marine Corps News, news from Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Fallen MoH recipient’s helmet lives on

Five years after Cpl. Jason Dunham died in Iraq, his former commander delivered the shattered remains of his helmet to the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Va., save one piece that will be sealed within the mast of a Navy destroyer named in Dunham’s honor.

The ship was dedicated Saturday in Maine.

What makes Dunham’s helmet worthy of a museum and a destroyer is not the helmet itself, but the heroism of its former owner, the Corps’ only Medal of Honor recipient from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. While repelling an ambush in Karabilah, Iraq, Dunham saved his fellow Marines by throwing his helmet and himself on an enemy grenade.

“Cpl. Dunham was the quintessential Marine,” Maj. Trent A. Gibson, Dunham’s former commander, said in a news release. “He was the square jawed, muscular all-American man you envision when someone says ‘Marine.’ He had the character to back up his looks, too.”

On April 14, 2004, Dunham was serving as a squad leader under then-Capt. Gibson, who commanded Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines. While on patrol, their battalion commander’s convoy was ambushed. Dunham led his squad to stop fleeing insurgent vehicles. An Iraqi jumped from one and tried to choke him, according to the release. During their scuffle, the Iraqi dropped a grenade. Through his next and final act, the 22-year-old Dunham saved his squad and lost his life. For that, he received the nation’s highest combat-valor award.

When Gibson arrived on the scene, he noticed a shard of Dunham’s helmet nearby. He ordered his men to collect the rest. For five years, the helmet’s remains were kept in storage. Then Gibson began collaborating with Deb and Dan Dunham, Jason Dunham’s parents.

They considered displaying the helmet’s remains on the destroyer Jason Dunham’s quarterdeck or simply burying it. Eventually, they decided to donate it to the museum while saving a single piece to seal in the ship’s mast.

On July 9, Gibson and Sgt. Mark Dean, one of Dunham’s friends, delivered the helmet to a museum curator.

“At first we were a little uneasy about the notion of displaying it, due to the graphic nature of the object,” Gibson said in the release. “But I mainly didn’t want the significance of the helmet to become lost. It isn’t just Marine Corps property; it was spiritually transformed to a part of the Marine Corps’ living history.”

Read more:

Destroyer christened in honor of MoH Marine

Read Jason Dunham’s Medal of Honor citation