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60 years ago, February 25, 1966, 33‑year‑old Staff Sergeant Peter Spencer Connor was leading the 3rd Platoon, Company F, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, 1st Marine Division, on a search‑and‑destroy mission through a dense, tunnel‑riddled area of Quang Ngai Province, Republic of Vietnam, where cave and spider‑hole complexes made every foot of ground a potential death trap.He served as platoon sergeant, veteran of Korea and multiple Marine threats, responsible for advancing his Marines through the jagged ridgelines, rice paddies, and overgrown tree lines without letting them drift into unprotected alleys where the Viet Cong could spring an ambush.The platoon was pushing forward under intermittent small‑arms fire, the Marines moving cautiously, eyeballing foxholes, ditches, and suspicious mounds of earth, when Connor’s sharp eyes picked up a subtle break in the terrain about fifteen meters in front of his men, the telltale outline of a concealed spider‑hole emplacement hidden just off the trail.Realizing the enemy position threatened to blast the lead elements of his platoon once they walked into its arc of fire, he reacted instantly, moving himself into the forward edge of the skirmish line, pulling a fragmentation grenade from his web gear, and pulling the pin with the intention of charging the hole and dropping the live grenade directly into the Viet Cong fighting position.The second the grenade’s fuze ignited, he realized something was wrong: the timer on the weapon malfunctioned, burning down faster than normal, giving him only seconds before detonation instead of the usual several seconds he would need to close the distance and throw the grenade safely into the emplacement.He stood there for a fraction of a second, the armed grenade in his hand, while the Marines around him were spread out in the open, some directly behind him, others fanning to the sides, none of them able to all reach cover in the few seconds remaining before the device exploded.If he threw the grenade toward the enemy, its fragments and blast radius would almost certainly kill or wound Marines moving behind him. If he dropped it on the ground nearby, anyone in that immediate circle would be in the kill zone.Without speaking, without hesitating, Connor made the decision, clamping the live grenade tightly against his own body, drawing it to his chest and torso, using his frame to contain as much of the blast as physically possible, shielding the Marines around him from the worst of the detonation.The grenade exploded where he held it, the blast tearing into his body at point‑blank range, sending shock waves and metal fragments through his chest, arms, legs, and back, but the weight of his own body and the limited space between him and the ground absorbed a significant portion of the energy that would otherwise have shredded his comrades.Most of the Marines in the immediate area were thrown backward by the blast but survived with minor or moderate injuries, while Connor collapsed, critically wounded, the lifesaving physical gap between the grenade and his men bought by his own body and his unhesitating decision.Medics rushed to him, other Marines dragged him away from the spider hole, and the platoon, galvanized by his sacrifice, returned fire into the concealed Viet Cong position, grenading, shooting, and then storming the hole to clear it of any remaining enemy soldiers.For his actions on February 25, 1966, near the tunnel and cave complexes of Quang Ngai, Staff Sergeant Peter S. Connor was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the United States’ highest military decoration for valor.Peter Spencer Connor died from the wounds he sustained on February 25, 1966, while being treated aboard the U.S. Navy hospital ship USS Repose in the South China Sea on March 8, 1966, at the age of 33, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, where his Medal of Honor and selfless sacrifice are officially recorded.#OnThisDay #MedalofHonor