This is just such an AWESOME story that reporter Franchesca Stevens shares with us, special to me because my Dad, Wally Moede of Windom, Minnesota entered the Marines at age 17 during WWII and was promoted to Sgt. in six months. The Marine instructor credited with saving an infantry student during a grenade training drill at a North Carolina base in 2013 received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal earlier this month for his heroism.
The Military Times reported Monday that Sgt. Joseph Liefer was awarded the highest non-combat honor on Nov. 7 for his actions in June 2013 at Camp Geiger.
Liefer was with the student, who accidentally threw an M-67 fragmentation grenade short of the target at the practice range. The live explosive hit off a concrete wall and landed at the student’s feet with only seconds before it detonated.
Liefer grabbed the Marine, “threw him out of the pit and then threw himself on top of the student, shielding the student with his body,” the report said, citing the award. They were uninjured in the blast, and continued on with the training, The Military Times reported.
“My training took over and I covered up the Marine and we are both here today, unscathed,” Liefer said, according to The Camp LeJeune Globe.
Col. Jeffery Connor, the commanding officer at the School of Infantry-East, told the paper that Liefer was “ready to do what he needed to do.”
“When that grenade dropped at the base of the pit, that was kind of a life-defining moment for Sgt. Liefer and he could have considered his own safety first, but that’s not what he did,” Connor said. “He took care of the Marine that was there beside him and that’s what Marines have done throughout our history.”
Picture is of Sgt. Liefer and his student
