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SOI instructors recognized for saving students

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — In nearly identical incidents seven weeks apart, quick thinking by two Marine combat instructors prevented likely catastrophic injuries when fragmentation grenades tossed by two students didn’t clear a wall.

In each case, a live M67 grenade exploded, but not before Staff Sgts. Shawn M. Martin and Jason M. Kuehnl each grabbed a junior Marine and pushed him over a low wall in the grenade pit and shielded him with his own body.

None of the four men were wounded.

For their actions last year, Martin and Kuehnl each received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal during a June 23 ceremony at School of Infantry-West, where they are assigned to Headquarters and Instructor Company, Marine Combat Training Battalion.

The Navy and Marine Corps Medal is one of the military’s highest awards given for noncombat heroism. It is generally awarded for heroic acts that save someone’s life while risking one’s own.

Martin, 31, was working his way through a large group of students at MCT Battalion on Sept. 12, when a male student stepped up.

“He wasn’t nervous,” said Martin, an infantry unit leader assigned at SOI-West for 2½ years. Instructors, he said, keep a keen eye out for students who appear nervous or fidgety so they can help them calm down.

He went through the procedures and the student stepped into position, his nonthrowing hand pointed forward as he prepared to toss the now-live grenade. Then, “he threw a line drive. It just hit the wall and came back.”

In that time — they’d have maybe five to seven seconds before the explosion — Martin saw the grenade and saw the student freeze. Martin grabbed him by his vest, forcing him out of the pit and over the low wall as he covered him with his own body and waited for the explosion.

Seconds later, the grenade blew up.

Seven weeks later, on Oct. 31, Kuehnl was in the same pit and chatted briefly with his student, who he recalled seemed “really relaxed.” He reviewed the procedures and prepared for the student to toss the grenade — but when the junior Marine threw it, “it went into the wall,” Kuehnl said.

Even as the grenade bounced back toward them, Kuehnl said he was nearly in midair as he put his arms around the student and pushed him out of the pit.

“While my eyeballs saw it, it just kind of shut down my hearing,” said Kuehnl, a light-armored vehicle crewman. “I just remember that grenade kind of fell right in between us.”

After the grenade detonated, the student stood up, laughing, Kuehnl said. “I was a little bit, like, whew.” With grenade training, “there’s always that possibility. You don’t know,” he added.

In both cases, grenade training in the pits resumed about an hour later. The instructors were acutely aware that their incident likely unnerved some of the students, but the training had to continue.

“I was just doing my job,” Kuehnl said. “I’m happy with a pat on the back.”