Teen GI killed in Iraq awarded Medal of Honor

McGinnis only came home twice on leave before he was killed, the last time for a couple of weeks in the spring of 2006. His family noticed how he matured since enlisting.

“He was more reserved and more confident and seemed to stand a lot taller, although he didn’t grow any while he was in the Army,” his father said. “He was a man. Unfortunately, we never really got to know him as a man. He was a child when he left, he got to visit with us a couple times, then he was gone.”

McGinnis last spoke to his parents on a Friday, three days before he was killed. He called his mother at her job Wal-Mart, where it was easier to reach her.

“So I’d take the call out on the floor. You talk about hard to keep your composure when your son is calling from Iraq,” she recalled.

He told her his picture was on the front of Stars and Stripes, the U.S. military newspaper, accompanying an article about his unit coming under attack after Saddam Hussein was convicted.

“He was really proud of that picture and he carried it with him, they said. And he called and told us about it,” his father said. “And on Monday, I was bragging about his fame. Monday night, we learned that he was dead.”

Lingering memories, emotions
More than a year after his death, friends still leave messages to McGinnis on his MySpace page. “Hey man i miss you so much and i wish you were here,” one poster wrote in April.

The other soldiers in the Humvee — Sgt. Lyle Buehler, Sgt. 1st Class Cedric Thomas and Spc. Sean Lawson — are still in the military. They planned to attend Monday’s Medal of Honor ceremony but were unavailable for interviews, an Army spokesman said.

Newland still struggles with knowing he’s alive because of his friend’s sacrifice. If McGinnis had jumped from the Humvee to save his own life, as he had been trained, no one would have faulted him, Newland said.

“I’ve never felt more proud in my life to have known somebody and have shared so many experiences with somebody and to have someone call me their friend,” Newland said, “but at the same time, never felt so guilty and ripped apart from the inside and outside and almost wishful that events could have been changed.”

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