It is easy to dismiss the politicians as cold and unfeeling.   Out of touch.  It is not always the case, however. 

One thing I have always admired about Bush was his humanity.  He has never been afraid to let his emotions show.  Remember Ashley Faulkner?  There is a reason the photo and story went viral.  It was because people see his sincerity.

Yes I know the DU and KOS will label both of these stories "the crocodile tears of the killer" of some nutrooty label, but I disagree. 

I think he has the weight of 3000 deaths or more on his shoulders and he feels it.

And as he gave the Medal of Honor to the family of a Marine killed in Iraq, I think his emotions are honest and real.

Maybe I am misguided, but that’s how I feel.

Like my friend Sister Toldjah, I want to honor the life and sacrifice of a hero, a Marine who literally threw himself on a grenade.

Tears Are Shed at the White House for a Marine’s Bravery in Iraq

In April 2004, Cpl. Jason L. Dunham, an ordinary recruit from a small town in upstate New York, did something extraordinary: he threw himself on a grenade to shield two men in his unit as they battled insurgents on a road in Iraq.

On Thursday, President Bush gave Corporal Dunham, who was 22 when he died, the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award, presenting it to his mother and father in a somber East Room ceremony attended by his relatives and friends.

In an interview on Tuesday, as she was preparing to make the six-hour trip to Washington for the ceremony, Corporal Dunham’s mother, Debra, said she wished her son could “receive it himself.” “But we will receive it for him, and he will be watching us do that,” she said.

Corporal Dunham, who was a rifle squad leader in the Marines, is the second soldier to receive the medal for service in the current war in Iraq. Prior to that, the 1993 conflict in Mogadishu, Somalia, was the last to produce Medal of Honor recipients; two Delta Army Force soldiers died protecting a downed helicopter pilot there in actions later depicted in the movie “Black Hawk Down.”

“He was the guy who signed on for an extra two months in Iraq so he could stay with his squad,” President Bush said. “As he explained it, he wanted to make sure that everyone makes it home alive. Corporal Dunham took that promise seriously and would give his own life to make it good.”

The anti war would love tol sieze on to him as another Casey Sheehan, but his parents at the news conference were full of support for the troops and do not seem inclined to nutrootery.

And the story does not end with this ceremony and a ribbon and medal in a box.

What of the people whose lives he saved?  Via Powerline, we find out.

On patrol on April 14, 2004, Cpl. Dunham found himself engaged in hand-to-hand combat with an insurgent near the Syrian border. When his attacker dropped a live hand grenade, the Marine made the split-second decision to cover the weapon with his own helmet, shielding two of his men from its full explosive force.

The other Marines staggered away from the blast, injured but alive. Cpl. Dunham suffered deep shrapnel wounds to the brain. He survived eight days in a coma, only to die with his parents at his bedside. He was 22 years old.

"There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it," said Cpl. William Hampton, one of the Marines fighting beside Cpl. Dunham when the grenade exploded. The explosion left Cpl. Hampton, a 24-year-old from Woodinville, Wash., peppered with shrapnel. "I see my arms, I see my leg. I’m always reminded of it."

In Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, Phillips updates the story with a heart-rending profile of the other Marine whose life Cpl. Dunham saved, Cpl. Kelly Miller: "How do you repay a hero’s sacrifice?" Cpl. Miller, though comforted, encouraged and "adopted" by Deb Dunham, is tortured by survivor’s guilt. Phillips’s superb story should serve as a reminder that Cpl. Dunham’s sacrifice — as that of so many others — is one that we will all have to redeem.

More from the WSJ:

Kelly Miller has the dream once or twice a week.

He’s on patrol in Iraq, searching a white Toyota Land Cruiser. The driver lunges out and grabs Cpl. Miller’s squad leader, Jason Dunham, around the neck. The Iraqi and Cpl. Dunham tumble to the ground in a ferocious hand-to-hand struggle. Cpl. Miller beats the insurgent with a police baton. Another Marine races over to help. The Iraqi drops a hand grenade.

The force of the explosion lifts Cpl. Dunham into the air, his back arching before he falls back toward the brown-dirt road.

Cpl. Miller wakes up.

Almost three years have passed since that grenade exploded for real. But the images are never far from his mind — the insurgent, the explosion and the friend who intentionally took the brunt of a live grenade and gave his own life to save Cpl. Miller’s. The adrenalin of combat, the pain of hot shrapnel, the guilt of making it home alive.

I know three people personally who are there or were there, and I feel nothing but thanksgiving that the two who have returned, did so intact.  Survivors guilt is a heavy load I cannot possibly fathom.

And of his family?  Cindy Sheehan take note.

Mrs. Dunham wasn’t surprised that Jason had given his own life for his friends; she would have been surprised if he had done anything else under the circumstances. In a letter to Cpl. Hampton’s mother, Mrs. Dunham wrote: "When you next get a chance to hug your son please give him one from me. He does not need to know it is from me, but I would appreciate if you would do that for me."

Far from begrudging Cpls. Miller and Hampton their survival, Mrs. Dunham felt that their lives added meaning to her own son’s death. Soon Deb Dunham and Linda Miller began referring to Cpl. Miller as "our son."

"We believe that Kelly and William are both very special," Mrs. Dunham wrote to Mrs. Miller. "I do not know what is in their futures but I (we) firmly believe that Jason did what he had to do and they have some important purpose here and he has his to do in Heaven."

And that is the hey difference between the two.  Mrs Dunham is celebrating her son’s life, his choice, his bravery and his sacrifice.  Mrs Sheehan is wallowing in guilt, searching for blame and living in a vat of self loathing and hatred because (in my opinion) she knows damn well her son made a choice to walk a path she didn’t approve of, that she abhors, and the hatred of those who support the war includes a hatred of her son who also made the choice to serve, and in serving volunteered to make a rescue pickup that cost his life.

As she hates Bush, as she call him murderer, she indicts herself as hating her own son.

Love and hate.

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