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Family of Navy Lt. Michael Murphy proud to accept his Medal of Honor

By Mike Celizic

TODAYShow.com contributor

Updated: 9:52 a.m. ET Oct 17, 2007

Daniel and Maureen Murphy always knew that their son, U.S. Navy Lt. Michael Murphy, was the kind of man who would give his own life to save the lives of others. And it will be with enormous pride that they accept from President Bush next week the nation’s highest combat award — the Medal of Honor.

“It just captures everything — how he lived his life,” Maureen Murphy told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer on Wednesday. “He was very honorable. He was just a good kid and he grew up to be a wonderful man. Getting that medal just shows everybody what kind of man he was.”

He demonstrated that in June of 2005 in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan, when he and his team of three other Navy SEALs were on the trail of Taliban insurgents. Two goat herders chanced upon the group, and Murphy, 29, had two choices: He could order the two civilians killed in violation of everything he had been taught and believed in, or he could let them go, knowing they could alert local Taliban fighters of the presence of the SEAL team, putting their lives in jeopardy.

Murphy let them go, because to kill them was to commit murder.

“Michael’s moral compass was 100 percent on,” Daniel Murphy, who was wounded himself while serving in Vietnam, said of his son. “It would never even cross his mind to injure a noncombatant.”

In a short time, scores of Taliban fighters surrounded the patrol. The team needed help — fast — and Murphy, already wounded once, stepped out into the open to use his satellite phone to call for help.

http://uscavonpoint.com/blogs/reconstructing_iraq/archive/2007/10/18/7003.aspx

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