Lt. Michael Murphy — Medal of Honor (full account)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- His mother describes Lt. Michael Murphy as “someone who always stuck up for the underdog.” His father says he was “honest, kind, caring -- probably the antithesis of what you would call a warrior.”

Murphy is the first service member to receive the Medal of Honor for action in .

Two years after he was killed in a firefight in , Dan and Maureen Murphy and their son John will receive Lt. Murphy’s Medal of Honor for heroism on the battlefield today from President Bush.

Murphy’s honor is the first to be awarded from the war in . Two Medals of Honor have been awarded to soldiers serving in .

In June 2005, Murphy, 29, led his four-man Navy SEAL team into the 10,000-foot peaks of ‘s to search for a terrorist thought to be in the region. But they were soon spotted and started taking fire from more than 40 insurgents.

According to a Navy report on the incident, the insurgents held the advantage of terrain and launched a well organized, three-sided attack on the team, forcing them deeper into a ravine.

All four men were soon wounded, said the SEAL team’s lone survivor, Petty Officer 2nd Class Marcus Luttrell. Watch Luttrell tell the story of what happened that day »

“We were hurtin’ bad,” Luttrell said. “We were out of ammo, and you know everybody, it was bad, it was real bad.”

Murphy exposed himself to enemy fire while trying to keep his team together, Luttrell said.

“He was in a horrible position. He left himself open so he could move back and forth to each individual guy.”

The mountainous terrain blocked communications. The team’s communications operator was wounded as he tried to find an area to transmit from. According to the Navy report, Murphy moved into the open and “calmly provided his unit’s location and the size of the enemy force while requesting immediate support for his team.”

The report said that at one point Murphy was hit in the back and dropped the handset but retrieved it and completed his call, even saying “thank you” at the end of his transmission.

Luttrell witnessed Murphy’s heroism.

“I looked back up at Mikey and he took two rounds to the back and sat back up, hung up the phone. ... That was the last time I saw him.”