Lower Marine award will do — for now
After years of arguing that Sgt. Rafael Peralta deserves the Medal of Honor, his family agrees to accept the Navy Cross instead
Reluctantly, the family of a Marine from San Diego who was killed in Iraq has agreed to accept a Navy Cross on his behalf, rather than the Medal of Honor they and the Marine Corps believe he deserves.
The family of Sgt. Rafael Peralta has agreed to accept the Navy Cross out of a sense of weariness with the controversy involving his death, according to Rep. Duncan Hunter (RAlpine). A ceremony at Camp Pendleton is being scheduled.
Hunter, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine officer, has campaigned in favor of Peralta receiving the Medal of Honor.
“The fight to upgrade the award will continue when the time is right, and I’ll be honored to lead that fight,” Hunter said Friday. “But the difference between the Navy Cross and Medal of Honor doesn’t change the fact that Rafael Peralta is a Marine Corps legend and hero.”
Peralta was 25 when he was killed Nov. 15, 2004, in Fallouja. He was among Marines ordered to clear the houses of heavily armed and barricaded insurgents. Peralta had volunteered for the mission and was the first Marine into the house.
As Marines stormed inside, Peralta was fatally wounded, possibly by friendly fire.
Marines who were there insist that, as he lay dying, Peralta reached out and scooped up an enemy grenade, absorbing the blast and saving the lives of fellow Marines. On that basis, Marine brass nominated Peralta for the nation’s highest medal for combat bravery.
But pathologists decided that Peralta could not have acted voluntarily, that he was already clinically dead and any actions were the involuntary spasms of a lifeless body. That finding has been hotly disputed.
Then-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates wrote in his memoir that he initially approved the Medal of Honor for Peralta but rescinded his decision in 2008 after a protest from the Department of Defense’s inspector general. Instead Gates awarded Peralta the Navy Cross but the family declined to accept it.
Gates had assembled a task force to review the nomination of Peralta for the Medal of Honor. The group agreed that he did not merit the award.
Hunter appealed to Gates’ successors, Leon Panetta and then Chuck Hagel. But in 2014, Hagel upheld the decision of Gates and Panetta, noting that awarding the Medal of Honor must be based on “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Hunter presented photos to Hagel showing that Peralta’s injuries were consistent with an explosion beneath or near the body, not one several feet away as the pathologists concluded. Hagel did not agree.
Peralta, an immigrant from Mexi- co, enlisted on the day he received his green card. From Iraq, he wrote letters to his younger brother, Ricardo, urging him to have pride in their adopted country.
Ricardo enlisted in the Marines in 2010 to fulfill a promise he made to his brother at his funeral. He deployed to Afghanistan. Rafael is buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, where his grave is kept fresh with flowers left by family members and Marines.
Peralta’s mother, Rosa, lives in Chula Vista, in a home purchased with his life insurance. When he enlisted, the family lived in San Diego.
At the Marine boot camp in San Diego, within days of arrival, recruits learn about Peralta during a lecture about Marine heroes.
Family members plan to donate the Navy Cross medal to a Navy destroyer under construction that will be named the Rafael Peralta.