Marine threw himself onto grenade

From BBC News:

A Royal Marine who threw himself onto an exploding grenade to save the lives of his patrol has been put forward for the UK's highest military honour.

Lance Corporal Matt Croucher, 24, a reservist from Birmingham, survived because his rucksack and body armour took the force of the blast.

and:

When a Taleban booby-trap grenade was tripped, L/Cpl Croucher jumped on to the device to absorb the force of the explosion with his backpack as his comrades dived for cover.

The blast blew his rucksack more than 30ft away but he remarkably suffered only severe shock and a bloodied nose in the incident.

One has to wonder what goes through someone's mind when they do something like this. Is it more automatic, not thought, just done? Do you decide to do it?

Good for L/Cpl Croucher. That's an amazing thing to do. He gets to be hero and live to tell the tale.

Even if you're against these wars, or even against war in general, this should sustain your hope for humanity; that in the midst of an awful, fearful and dangerous situation, this guy would throw himself onto a soon to be exploding grenade to save others is beyond my words to appreciate.

via Danger Room

Petty Officer Monsoor wasn't so lucky.

These are people. Look at the pictures. Don't they look like someone you'd know?