Happy Birthday Devil Dogs - Semper Fi
This photograph shows a wounded and bloody 1SG Kasal emerging from a building in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004 supported by Marines on his right and left. Then a first sergeant, Kasal had sustained wounds from seven bullets and taken more than 43 pieces of grenade shrapnel during a firefight.
He reportedly had lost 60 percent of his blood by the time he emerged from the house, supported by two lance corporals, but still brandishing his sidearm and Ka-Bar knife. In 2006, Kasal would receive the Navy Cross, the military’s second-highest award for valor, for his heroism that day.
According to his medal citation, Kasal had rolled on top of a wounded Marine to shield him, absorbing the shrapnel from an enemy grenade with his own body.
“When First Sergeant Kasal was offered medical attention and extraction, he refused until the other Marines were given medical attention,” the citation read. “Although severely wounded himself, he shouted encouragement to his fellow Marines as they continued to clear the structure.”
The photograph captured that day would later provide inspiration to sculptor John Phelps, a Gold Star father whose son, Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps, was killed in Iraq in 2004. Versions of Phelps’ sculpture, Hell House, now stand at the entrance to wounded warrior Hope and Care Centers at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and Camp Pendleton, California.
A 2012 biography of Kasal by Nathaniel Helms, “My Men Are My Heroes,” quickly became a staple of the Marine Corps Commandant’s Professional Reading List.
The book characterizes Kasal as an icon even prior to his heroism in Fallujah.
“Even before entering Iraq, Kasal was almost mythical among Marines, known for leading his troops at the front to ensure that he would always be the first man into a fight,” Helms writes. “In his mind, that is what Grunts do, and Brad Kasal is a true Grunt.”
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