A Pearl Harbor-based Navy SEAL who was killed deep behind enemy lines in Afghanistan in 2005 — sacrificing his life while radioing for help for fellow commandos — will be the first U.S. service member to receive a Medal of Honor in the six-year-old war, the Navy said yesterday.

U.S. Navy SEAL Lt. Michael P. Murphy will be recognized posthumously Oct. 22 at the White House, where President Bush will present the medal to Murphy's parents, Dan and Maureen.

The Medal of Honor is the nation's highest military award for valor in action against an enemy force that can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the U.S. armed forces.

Murphy is the fourth Navy SEAL in history to earn the highly respected award, and the first since Vietnam. Only two of the medals have been presented, both posthumously, for valor in the Iraq War.

Murphy's father will accept the award on behalf of his son, said a news release from the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command in San Diego.

Murphy, 29, of Patchogue, N.Y., will receive the award for his "extraordinary, selfless heroism and steadfast courage" while leading a four-man reconnaissance mission east of Asadabad in the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan June 27 to 28, 2005.

According to Murphy's Navy biography, a fierce gunbattle erupted between the SEALs and a much larger enemy force in the mountains.

Intent on making contact with headquarters, an already wounded Murphy, with disregard for his own safety, moved into the open to get a better position to transmit a call for help for his men.

At one point he was shot in the back, causing him to drop the transmitter, but Murphy retrieved it, completed the call, and continued firing on the enemy.

Five Pearl Harbor SEALs were killed — one on the mission with Murphy and three others in an ill-fated rescue and crash of a helicopter.

"While we're thrilled about this award to Michael, he would not have gotten this award without his team," his father told The Advertiser yesterday. "They meant everything. Michael fought and sacrificed his life for them, but they fought and sacrificed their lives for him. What more could you ask from a human being that he lay down his life for his teammates?"

'THE PROTECTOR'

When Murphy told his parents seven years ago that he planned to become a SEAL — or sea, air, land commando — they weren't surprised that the son they nicknamed "the protector" had chosen that calling.

"He was a fearless type of kid," his mother, Maureen, said from New York. "He always put other people ahead of himself. If he saw somebody in trouble, he would help out."

Her son was engaged to marry Heather Duggan in October 2005 — four months after he was killed. Duggan, who had been a gymnast at Penn State where they both were enrolled, had taken a job as a gymanstics coach at Hawaiian Island Twisters in Mapunapuna.

Murphy had been accepted to several law schools, but instead decided to become a SEAL. He earned his SEAL trident and reported to SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One at Pearl Harbor in 2002.

In early 2005, Murphy was again assigned to Pearl Harbor as assistant officer in charge of Alpha platoon and deployed to Afghanistan.

Dan Murphy said his son was loyal and protective from the start, helping out kids who were picked on at school, working as a lifeguard and serving his country. "It's just a natural progression," he said.

Having earned a Purple Heart for combat injuries in Vietnam that left him 40 percent disabled, Dan wasn't happy that his son chose a career that would put him behind enemy lines, but he supported the decision. "It appealed to him. He was such an adventurer in that sense," he said yesterday.

BELIEVED IN MISSION

Murphy once told his parents that if something were to happen, they should know that he died doing something he loved. He wouldn't have been happy sitting behind a desk for 30 years, he insisted.

The e-mails his parents received talked about the fun he was having, the camaraderie with his team and his belief in the mission.

The SEAL called "Murph" and "Mikey" by fellow commandos told his father about the Afghanistan mission and said that, "We're going to be going where it all started. We're going to be going against the people who attacked New York City."

Murphy and Sonar Technician-Surface 2nd Class Matthew G. Axelson of Cupertino, Calif., were killed during the reconnaissance mission.

Three others with SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One at Pearl Harbor were killed June 28, 2005, when their MH-47 helicopter, carrying a quick reaction force sent to rescue Murphy's team, was shot down and crashed in mountainous terrain west of Asadabad.

Those SEALs were Senior Chief Information Systems technician Daniel R. Healy of Exeter, N.H.; Machinist's Mate 2nd Class Eric S. Patton of Boulder City, Nev.; and Quartermaster 2nd Class James E. Suh of Deerfield Beach, Fla.

Altogether, three U.S. servicemembers were killed on the ground, and 16 on the helicopter perished.

SELFLESS LEADER

When Murphy and the other Pearl Harbor SEALs were remembered at a July 2005 memorial at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, Lt. Sean Chittick, a fellow SEAL from Pearl Harbor, read comments sent to him from friends still fighting in Afghanistan.

They had said Murphy was a selfless, humble leader who "put his men above everything."

"Murph was afraid of nothing and excellent at everything he did," Chittick said.

Murphy's SEAL team had been sent to locate a high-level Taliban militia leader to provide intelligence needed to capture or destroy the local leadership and disrupt enemy activity.

However, local Taliban sympathizers discovered the SEAL unit and immediately revealed their position to Taliban fighters, and the team was besieged on a mountaintop by scores of enemy fighters.

Murphy's call for help ultimately led to the rescue of one severely wounded team member, Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Marcus Luttrell, and the recovery of the remains of Murphy, Axelson and another SEAL, Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Danny Dietz.

HEROIC TALE

Luttrell wrote a book about the battle after he left the Navy this summer. In his book, "Lone Survivor," Luttrell credited all three of his teammates for their heroism, including Murphy's sacrificial act that eventually led to his rescue.

"I could hear him talking," Luttrell wrote. " 'My men are taking heavy fire ... we're getting picked apart. My guys are dying out here ... we need help.'

"And right then Mikey took a bullet straight in the back. I saw the blood spurt from his chest. He slumped forward, dropping his phone and his rifle. But then he braced himself, grabbed them both, sat upright again, and once more put the phone to his ear.

" 'Roger that, sir. Thank you,' " Luttrell heard Murphy say, before the lieutenant continued to train fire on the enemy fighters.

"Only I knew what Mikey had done. He'd understood we had only one realistic chance, and that was to call in help," Luttrell wrote. "Knowing the risk, understanding the danger, in the full knowledge the phone call could cost him his life, Lieutenant Michael Patrick Murphy, son of Maureen, fiancé of the beautiful Heather, walked out into the firestorm.

"His objective was clear: to make one last valiant attempt to save his two teammates," Luttrell wrote.

In 2004, SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One held a flag-raising ceremony for a new 22-acre, $47 million Pearl City Peninsula facility. The facility is home to the 65-foot Advanced SEAL Delivery System mini-sub and SEAL delivery vehicles used with submarines.

At the time, the command was made up of 230 enlisted and 45 officers, composed primarily of SEALs, divers and submarine and surface fleet technicians.

Sgt. Rafael Peralta, a Kane'ohe Bay Marine, was nominated in 2006 and remains under consideration for the Medal of Honor.

Peralta, 25, died during a military operation in Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004. Witnesses at the time said Peralta was shot several times while clearing a building of insurgents. Lying on the floor, he then clutched a grenade to his body after it had been tossed into the house, shielding several fellow Marines from the blast.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com and Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.