“He Looked Death in the Face” Remembering Navy SEAL Michael A. Monsoor

— SEAL Legacy (@SEALLegacy) September 29, 2025 Ramadi and the Work that Tests a Man In spring 2006, he deployed to Ramadi with SEAL Team Three Delta Platoon as a heavy weapons gunner and communicator. He carried more than one hundred pounds of gear in desert heat and still moved like a fullback who sees a crease. On May 9, under a storm of gunfire, he sprinted into the street and dragged a wounded teammate to safety. That action earned him the Silver Star. His Platoon Commander, Lieutenant Seth Stone, later said he thought Monsoor was the toughest guy in the platoon. That was not bravado. That was a SEAL officer talking about the man at his shoulder when the streets boiled. Saint Michael’s Day September 29, 2006, the Feast of Saint Michael. Monsoor and two teammates were on a rooftop overwatch in Ramadi when a grenade struck him in the chest and dropped to the deck. He had a clear path to the door. His teammates did not. He looked at the danger and made a choice that lasts longer than any brass or blast marks. He threw himself onto the grenade and absorbed the explosion, saving their lives. He died about thirty minutes later. This is not mythology. It is the official record and the living memory of men who were an arm’s length away when he acted. Teammates speak about how deliberate he was. No flinch and no backward step. One recalled that he never took his eye off the grenade. Lieutenant Commander Michael Sarraille put it plain. “All Monsoor had to do was turn the other direction, jump, and he would have lived”. But because of his character, Doug and I are still alive today.  The Tridents on the Casket At Fort Rosecrans, the SEAL community gave him a send-off rarely seen. As the casket passed, each SEAL pulled the golden Trident from his uniform and drove it into the lid. One after another, a line of brothers turned rosewood into a field of gold. President George W Bush later described the scene as a simple coffin transformed into a gold-plated memorial to a hero who will never be forgotten. If courage has a sound, it is the steady rhythm of Tridents striking wood. A legacy That Keeps Working His Medal of Honor went to his parents on April 8, 2008. His name sails with the fleet on the Navy destroyer USS Michael Monsoor DDG 1001, commissioned in San Diego on January 26, 2019. Every time that ship gets underway, his story leaves the pier again and does what he did in life, it covers others. The sharper edge of his legacy lives inside the Teams. Reputation matters in a small tribe that fights up close. A teammate said, “When Mikey was to your side, you felt safe”. Lines like that do not fade. They are told to new guys in the Team Room, on ranges, on rooftops, and in the short seconds when the next decision arrives.   Today we welcomed the USS Micheal Monsoor for an Honor Sail to honor the strong relationship between the City and County of San Francisco and the Navy. Received by SFFD, USCG, USACE, and SFPF. pic.twitter.com/18MsZraN9Y — Fleet Week SF (@FleetWeekSF) October 3, 2020   Why His Memory Endures Monsoor was the lineman who kept the blocks sealed, the gunner who stepped into the fatal funnel so others could move, the communicator who hauled extra weight without complaint. When the test came, he did not weigh philosophy or search for grand meaning. He acted like a man who had rehearsed selflessness for years in small reps that nobody noticed. That is the lesson. Character is a muscle you build long before the blast. On the anniversary of his sacrifice, remember him not as a statue in a courtyard, but as a teammate who made the choice every warrior hopes to make and that few are asked to face. If you want a compass, his points true.