With a live grenade about to explode during a sudden training mishap, Marine Sgt. Brett D. Meil’s only thoughts were for his student, so he threw his own body over a junior Marine just before the grenade went off.
When the grenade exploded, Meil shielded his fellow Marine from the blast and shrapnel, preventing the June training mishap at Camp Pendleton from turning deadly, Corps officials said Wednesday.
For his selfless bravery, Meil recently was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, the Department of the Navy’s highest non-combat award, a news release from Training and Education Command says.
On June 13, 2023, Meil was serving as a safety officer during live grenade training at the School of Infantry – West at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California.
As Meil was explaining to a junior Marine how to prepare a M67 fragmentation grenade, the student accidentally released the munition’s safety lever, activating the grenade’s fuse, while continuing to hold the grenade.
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Meil instantly realized that the student did not understand the severity of the situation and how little time there was to get rid of the grenade before it exploded.
“My initial thought was how do I get this private out of the pit and leave the grenade in it” Meil later recalled, according to the news release.
Meil remained calm and told the Marine several times to throw the grenade. But the student remained frozen.
With no time to lose, Meil grabbed the grenade out of the Marine’s hand and threw it toward the target area. But his throw hit an interior wall and bounced back toward the pair, landing just feet from the pit where Meil and the second Marine lay on the ground.
Disregarding his own safety, Meil pulled the other Marine as close to him as possible and wrapped his arms around the student’s body. The grenade exploded and Meil was hit by hundreds of pieces of shrapnel. The other Marine was safe and suffered only minor injuries.
“Once the grenade had detonated within proximity of the Marines, Meil’s immediate actions were to assess the health and condition of the Marine he was responsible for and then immediately call for medical assistance,” the Marine Corps news release says. “Only after being relieved by fellow combat instructors and medical personnel did Meil look to his own well-being.”
For his quick thinking, Meil was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal at a ceremony Tuesday at Camp Pendleton.
“Staff Sgt. Meil performed exactly the way that we ask combat instructors to,” Col. Patrick B. Bryne, the commanding officer of SOI-West, said in the news release. “He identified that there was a dangerous situation, he assessed it and immediately acted exactly appropriately to address the danger and protect the student.”
Meil is the third Marine this month awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal.
Marine Cpl. Spencer Collart was posthumously awarded the medal earlier this month for his efforts to save the lives of two pilots after an August 2023 MV-22B Osprey crash. After initially escaping the crash, Collart died when he returned to the burning plane to help the pilots.
Marine Sgt. Andrew Gomez also recently received the award for saving a woman from a fiery car wreck in New Jersey in June 2023.