Long Island Naval Officer, Killed in Action, Is Honored for Heroism

A Navy Seal from Long Island will posthumously receive the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award, in a White House ceremony today. As Raymond Hernandez describes in an article today:

In June 2005, Lt. Michael P. Murphy and three fellow members of the Navy Seals were on a mission in the mountains of Afghanistan when they were pinned down by a swarm of enemy fighters. Trapped in a steep ravine, they were unable to get a radio signal to call for help. With the Americans suffering injuries, ammunition running low and roughly 100 Taliban fighters closing in, Lieutenant Murphy made a bold but fateful decision: He left the sheltering mountain rocks into an open area where he hoped to get a radio frequency. He managed to make contact with Bagram Air Base, calling in his unit’s location and the size of the enemy force, even as he came under direct fire, according to a declassified Navy account of the battle.

Lieutenant Murphy, of Patchogue, N.Y., is the first member of the Navy to receive the medal since the Vietnam War, a Navy spokesman said.