Medal of Honor case might hinge on video

SAN DIEGO » Federal lawmakers announced Thursday they have obtained information previously unavailable to military investigators that proves the Navy should not have disqualified a Marine from being posthumously awarded America's highest military honor.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter said his office sent a formal request from the area's congressional delegation to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus urging him to reconsider Sgt. Rafael Peralta for the Medal of Honor in a last-ditch effort before the deadline ends. Four other San Diego-area representatives and California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer also signed the letter.

After a scientific panel examined the forensic evidence at the time, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates decided to award Peralta the Navy Cross instead of the Medal of Honor based on the conclusion that the Marine, who suffered a head wound, was not conscious when his body smothered a grenade in Iraq in 2004, saving other Marines from the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, from Kane­ohe Bay.

Hunter spokesman Joe Kasper said the congressman has obtained a video of the battle action and a newly released report by a forensic pathologist that proves Peralta was conscious and intentionally pulled the grenade under his body.

The Defense Department's conclusion contradicts the Marine Corps' report and the accounts of seven witnesses who saw Peralta pull the grenade to himself, Hunter said.

Kasper said the congressman sent the Navy the report by forensic pathologist Dr. Vincent Di Maio, who concluded, "Taking into account the circumstances surrounding the incident: the statements of the witnesses; the condition of the body armor; the autopsy findings; the opinion of the neurosurgeons and neurologist and my own experience with head wounds, it is my opinion that, in all medical probability, Sgt. Peralta was not immediately incapacitated by the brain injury, and in fact reached for the grenade and pulled it under his body."

The Navy secretary's spokes­woman, Capt. Pamela Kunze, said Mabus will review the letter and "respond appropriately."