After a long battle for the Medal of Honor, Sgt. Rafael Peralta’s family has received a Navy Cross, the second-highest military award, on the fallen Marine’s behalf.
Peralta was 25 years old when he died in Iraq in 2004. Out on patrol in Fallujah, he was the first to enter a home in search of insurgents. When other Marines walked into the house, a firefight erupted. Peralta was mortally wounded by an enemy fighter. As he lay dying, Peralta and other Marines became trapped in the room with a live grenade. They witnessed Peralta pull the grenade to his body, protecting the others from the blast.
Peralta received the award posthumously more than six years ago. The Marine Corps had nominated him for the highest award, the Medal of Honor, which put the presentation of the Navy Cross on hold for years as the Pentagon considered the higher nomination. After a long investigation, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates determined that the evidence for the nomination was inconclusive.
Icela Donald Peralta, Rafael’s sister, told the Washington Examiner that there was some controversy over whether the family had refused the Navy Cross.
“We never had rejected it,” she said.
Icela Donald Peralta said that their mother already has many of Rafael’s medals and intends to donate the Navy Cross. Its permanent home will be in a Navy destroyer named the USS Rafael Peralta after its construction is finished.
Although Peralta’s mother had hoped that he’d receive the Medal of Honor, she welcomed the revelation that the ship would be named after her son. “She saw … that a better present would be for them to have the Navy Cross in the ship that carried his heart, his spirit and actually everything that my brother represents,” Icela Donald Peralta said.
The Peralta family had a strong sense of patriotism even before Rafael enlisted in the armed forces. Their father worked in San Diego before moving his family there from Mexico in the hopes of improving their lives.
“Having my brother now as a legend for this country, it values my dad even more,” Icela Donald Peralta said.
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, who recommended Peralta for the Medal of Honor in 2012, presented his family with the Navy Cross. The ceremony was held Monday at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
When asked if receiving the award felt strange since her brother was not there to receive it, Icela Donald Peralta said, “It doesn’t change the meaning that my brother is not here, that we miss him and our lives have been changed since he’s gone.”
The fight for Peralta’s Medal of Honor will continue. The Los Angeles Times reported that Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a former Marine, said that he will lead the fight to upgrade Rafael’s award “when the time is right.”
“But the difference between the Navy Cross and Medal of Honor doesn’t change the fact that Rafael Peralta is a Marine Corps legend and hero,” Hunter told the Times.
“We have faith that one day he will be upgraded,” Donald Peralta said, but added that the family would be content without it, as “he’s already a hero” to them.
Emily Leayman is an intern at the Washington Examiner.
