The family of a celebrated Marine Corps hero of the Iraq war, Mexican-born Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta, has decided to accept a posthumous Navy Cross for valor nearly 11 years after he was killed in combat.
Fellow marines said 25-year-old Peralta smothered a grenade in his dying moments in November 2004 during the brutal Battle of Fallujah.
Although his nomination for the Medal of Honor – the United States’ highest honor for valor – was approved by top U.S. generals, a Defense Department investigation determined that he could not have acted consciously to cover the grenade and therefore did not meet the strict “beyond reasonable doubt” criteria for the award.
Peralta’s mother held out, believing her son deserved the Medal of Honor rather than the Navy Cross, the nation’s second-highest award. Despite testimonies from his comrades that they would not be alive without Peralta’s bravery, three successive U.S. defense secretaries – Robert Gates, Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel – all denied Peralta the upgrade.
Although Peralta’s brother Ricardo, who also served in the Marine Corps, told the Washington Post that the Defense Department’s intransigence is “a slap in the face,“ he noted that his sibling “didn’t really care about medals or decorations.”
The award ceremony is scheduled for June 8.