WASHINGTON — Army Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry could have sought cover four years ago when a grenade landed near him and two of his fellow soldiers, all of them caught in an Afghanistan compound full of insurgents. That’s what every soldier is trained to do.
But he didn’t. Petry picked the grenade up and threw it just as it exploded.
“This wounded Ranger, this 28-year-old man with his whole life ahead of him, this husband and father of four did something extraordinary,” President Barack Obama said Tuesday. “What leads a person to risk everything so that others might live?”
Obama presented Petry the Medal of Honor in the East Room of the White House for Petry’s gallant act that “undeniably saved his fellow Rangers from being severely wounded or killed.”
While the ceremony honored a single act, Obama said it also was a chance to honor an entire generation that had borne the burden of the country’s security for 10 years.
The president’s speech narrated Petry’s bravery during a mission in which Petry, then a staff sergeant, was grievously wounded and even lost his right hand yet still maintained the presence of mind to lead his soldiers.
Petry, of Santa Fe, N.M., thanked his family, his doctors and nurses and his fellow Rangers. He said that although he has been singled out, all men and women in uniform were heroes.
In an emotional moment during Obama’s speech, the sister, brother and grandmother of Spec. Christopher Gathercole stood up, to applause. Gathercole died in the same raid that took Petry’s hand.
Petry is the ninth American to receive the country’s highest honor for valorous actions in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he’s only the second person to receive the honor alive.
Petry, 31, serves in the 75th Ranger Regiment unit at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.
Bolted to Petry’s prosthetic arm is a plaque with the names of those in his regiment who fell in combat.
