Recruits at the Corps’ two recruit training depots will know Cpl. Jason L. Dunham. They will know that the 22-year-old Marine lived up to the Corps’ largest legends and laid down his own life ? diving on a grenade, no less ? to save his Marines.
One Marine dubbed it a “selfless” act of valor. Another said it’s destined to make him “everybody’s hero.” A third said it defined him as “something special” ? so special that Sgt. Maj. Wayne R. Bell, the 1st Marine Division sergeant major, believes Dunham may wind up with an honor not conferred upon a Marine since the Vietnam War.