CORONADO, Calif. - A Navy SEAL sacrificed his life to save his comrades by throwing himself on top of a grenade Iraqi insurgents tossed into their sniper hideout, fellow members of the elite force said.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor had been near the only door to the rooftop structure Sept. 29 when the grenade hit him in the chest and bounced to the floor, said four SEALs who spoke to The Associated Press this week on condition of anonymity because their work requires their identities to remain secret.

"He never took his eye off the grenade, his only movement was down toward it," said a 28-year-old lieutenant who sustained shrapnel wounds to both legs that day. "He undoubtedly saved mine and the other SEALs' lives, and we owe him."

Monsoor, a 25-year-old gunner, was killed in the explosion in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. He was only the second SEAL to die in Iraq since the war began.

Two SEALs next to Monsoor were injured; another who was 10 to 15 feet from the blast was unhurt. The four had been working with Iraqi soldiers providing sniper security while U.S. and Iraqi forces conducted missions in the area.

In an interview at the SEALs' West Coast headquarters in Coronado, four members of the special force remembered "Mikey" as a loyal friend and a quiet, dedicated professional.

"He was just a fun-loving guy," said a 26-year-old petty officer 2nd class who went through the grueling 29-week SEAL training with Monsoor. "Always got something funny to say, always got a little mischievous look on his face."

Other SEALS described the Garden Grove, Calif., native as a modest and humble man who drew strength from his family and his faith. His father and brother are former Marines, said a 31-year-old petty officer 2nd class.

Prior to his death, Monsoor had already demonstrated courage under fire. He has been posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his actions May 9 in Ramadi, when he and another SEAL pulled a team member shot in the leg to safety while bullets pinged off the ground around them.

...For this action, President Bush posthumously awarded Petty Officer Monsoor the Medal of Honor in a White House ceremony yesterday.

Within the military, we decorate our heroes (and Monsoor certainly is one) to reward their bravery and establish their example as one we might aspire to. Monsoor's actions deserve our admiration and awe.

I am deeply disturbed, however, by the White House's unfortunate decision to hold this ceremony on April 8, 2008 -- the same day as the Petraeus and Crocker testimony before Congress. The timing of this ceremony could not have been accidental. It was clearly a political maneuver; an attempt to leverage the personal valor of Petty Officer Monsoor for political gain. That is wrong. Petty Officer Monsoor's sacrifice and valor are worthy of their own day -- not one designed for maximum political advantage.

Last Sunday's New York Times Sunday Styles section had an article entitled, "After War, Love Can Be a Battlefield" by Leslie Kaufman. The article was about the stresses and strains that the invasion and occupation of Iraq have placed on soldiers' marriages.

Major Levi Dunton told the Times that "he had trouble being involved with his family. He didn't find joy in being a parent to his two boys, 3 and 5 months. Little things made him angry." He made it clear, however, that other soldiers had it a lot worse.

According to the article, "Divorce rates for its personnel have been on the rise since 2003, the first year of war, when they were 2.9 percent. In 2004, divorce rates in the Army soared to 3.9 percent, propelled by a sharp rise in divorce among the usually much more stable officers corps. That rate has dropped, according to Army demographics, to 1.9 percent for officers and 3.5 percent for the entire Army in fiscal year 2007--which represents roughly 8,700 divorces in total. Female soldiers are the exception; they divorce at a rate of about 9 percent."

The Pentagon is trying to address the problem by holding marriage retreats in which they are encouraging spouses to have better communication with each other.

The military's diagnosis of the problem will undoubtedly revolve around the horrors of war and the effect that war has on the psyche of the individual.

That diagnosis is undoubtedly true but perhaps only partly. Unfortunately the military won't be able to have its soldiers confront another probable cause for their depression and malaise--deeply seated guilt over the wrongful killing of other human beings.

American soldiers serving in Iraq know that they will never be criminally prosecuted for killing Iraqis. In their minds, they are loyally serving their government by obeying the orders of their commander in chief. On the conscious level, they convince themselves that they are fighting to preserve America's freedom and values. They are convinced that they are risking their lives for a noble and heroic cause--helping the Iraqi people.

Any priest or psychiatrist will tell you, however, that a person's conscience and subconscious mind cannot be tricked so easily. When a person has engaged in grave wrongdoing, it is virtually impossible for him to escape the consequences of a conscience that begins to eat away at him. Moreover, the subconscious mind begins bedeviling him, producing all types of aberrant and dysfunctional behavior.

While it's true that some people, such as pathological serial killers, seem to experience no guilt or crises of conscience when they kill people, most of the soldiers in Iraq are ordinary Americans for whom the concept of right and wrong is very important to their lives.

My hunch is that U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq who are experiencing despondency, depression, malaise, and disintegrating family life are suffering from much more than post-traumatic-stress-disorder arising from rough battlefield conditions. My hunch is that they are also suffering the consequences of severe guilt arising from being part of a military force that attacked another country needlessly.

Every U.S. soldier knows that none of the people he killed (or maimed) ever attacked the United States and neither did their government or any of their countrymen. Deep down, every U.S. soldier in Iraq knows that he had no moral or legal right to kill the people he killed.

How can the wrongful killing of another human being, even if not subject to criminal prosecution, fail to produce depression, despondency, guilt, and malaise in most soldiers who have done the killing?