Medal of Honor

"Six fellow soldiers also received the Medal of Honor with me on that warm, clear day in June, 1971. However, only one man stood beside me. Tragically, the other five were awarded posthumously. Such sorrow reflects the magnitude of the actions of those individuals who are considered for the CMH. A female lieutenant colonel once asked me if I knew why they gave me the medal. She asked the question in such a way that I took it as meaning she knew the reason- did I? Her question pissed me off. I thought, what the hell do you know? How could you, who have never seen combat, possibly know? I was preparing to give it to her with both barrels at the conclusion of her comment. However, she said something profound that hit the nail right square on the head. She said, "They gave you the medal because they realize that something has happened to you that they can't understand." You were absolutely right, ma'am. My apologies."

"It seemed like the entire world knew I'd come out of Womack's Nut Ward, and as a result I was accused of everything from shoplifting to armed robbery to murder. Nobody took my word for anything. Any derogatory stories that could be old about me were given maximum dissemination. When you have the Medal of Honor, all actions- good, bad, true, or false- are magnified, and an undue amount of significance is attached to each. My every move- real or imagined- became front-page news. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but not much."

"I was resting, and some sergeant comes up to me and says, 'There's a guy from your home state wants to talk with you.' I said, 'Who?' He said, 'I don't know. Just follow me.' So I follow him into another room, nothing but lights in that room. A desk and a commanding general standing at the foot of it, a brigadier general of the Third Division. His name was Osborne. I was told to go up and see him. I'm wondering, 'What the hell am I going to see him for?' And he tells me, he says, 'Do you know you received the Congressional Medal of Honor?' All I could say was, 'What?' I'll never forget that. 'What for?' Then he asked me to relate my story. Why? I figured. Hell, I said, 'Geez.' I figured I might get court-martialed. And I told him I just felt I was doing my job, doing what I was trained to do. I didn't think I was a hero deserving of the Medal. That's when he told me the reason they didn't let my family know was they were afraid of reprisal from the enemy. Even though they finally released names and all, they still didn't let my wife know I'd received the Medal. They just told her I was alive. Then we were sent to a port of debarkation, and I was given a choice of flying home or going home by troopship with the rest of the fellas. I figured, geez, that's a good time to recuperate, get built up a little. I think I weighed ninety-eight pounds. That ship took nineteen days to reach San Francisco. I was seasick I think eleven days on that boat. I went to Italy and back on a ship, never got sick. I went over the Japan Sea, one of the roughest, never got sick. And here was the smoothest ride back home, and I got sick. Anyway, we docked in San Francisco and I was the first one to debark. They gave me that honor."

"I was the type of person, and I still am, who always wanted to be in the background. I'm a good listener. I'd rather be a listener than the one up there doing the talking. All through my school years, I could never get up in front of a class, and talk, read even. But wearing the Medal requires us to be in the public's eye, especially for the youngsters, the schoolkids. We get asked to talk to them whenever we attend the Medal of Honor conventions. That has changed my life."

"Every recipient has got to be different because, you take a guy from a coal mine or steel mill or the farm, and he's awarded the Medal of Honor, his life changes immediately."

"We're loyal Americans, Number One. Most of them are dependable. You can depend on them for anything. I think there's a feeling of unity in the Society that no other group in the country has because you know that people expect a lot of things from you, and you'll make a concerted effort to abide by that, and honor it. And I always mention that this doesn't belong to me. It belongs to thirty-three other guys, too. And then I can tell the story about that. I don't know how else to tell it because, after all, they were there and fought with me, but they didn't get anything but Purple Hearts. And half of them died. The last thing I ever thought about was a medal."

"In April of 2011, almost a year after arriving back in the States, I ended my military career, moved my family from Colorado to North Dakota, and tried to put the Army behind me by taking a job as a safety supervisor in the oil fields just outside the town of Minot. It was there, in the autumn of 2012, that I found myself sitting in the cab of a pickup truck next to an oil rig when a call arrived from a colonel who was stationed at the Pentagon. He was phoning to ask if I'd be willing to hop on a plane to DC and drop by his office. I had n idea what this might be about, but I'd already used up my vacation time for the year, so it was another month before I could comply with the request. When I was finally able to make the trip, I was brought into a conference room and invited to join a group of colonels and generals who were sitting at a long table. It was at this point that I requested and explanation for why I was there. "You don't know?" someone asked. When I shook my head, they explained that after conducting an extensive review of my actions during the Battle for Keating, I was slated to receive the Medal of Honor, the highest military award the country can bestow."

"It would be an understatement to say that I found this news confusing. In fact, it made no sense whatsoever. Singling me out for such a superlative commendation struck me as both inappropriate and wrong. In my view, nothing that I'd done that day was any different from what my comrades had accomplished. What's more, I could easily have picked half a dozen men- especially Gallegos, Kirk, Hardt, Mace, and Griffin- who truly deserved selection because they had given their lives in an effort to save others. But me? No way. The idea seemed to violate my sense of what was most important- and what deserved to be commemorated- about that day. Although I didn't know it at the time, it turns out that most Medal of Honor recipients feel exactly the same way. It also turns out this fact has had very little impact on the way that I feel about the honor that I was selected to receive- and everything else that would later unfold from it. They picked the wrong guy."

"As for the medal itself, when I got back home, a question arise for which I really didn't have an answer: What exactly do I do with this thing? I don't know what most of the other recipients do, although I've asked a handful of them. A few have ordered up replacements so that they have something to wear and to show folks when they ask to see it, while they store the original in a safe-deposit box. Others keep the medal in a sock drawer or on their nightstand. As for me, I never bothered to ge a duplicate and I eventually took to carrying the original around in my front pocket. As a result, it's taken several accidental trips through the washing machine, so the gilded surface is a bit tarnished, and the blue ribbon has begun to fade. But that doesn't bother me a bit. In fact, I kind of like it that way, perhaps- in part- because I don't truly regard it as mine. Like it or not, there are eight other guys with whom I served to whom that medal rightly belongs, because heroes- true heroes, the men whose spirit the medal embodies- don't ever come home. By that definition, I'm not a true hero. Instead, I'm a custodian and a caretaker. I hold the medal, and everything it represents, on behalf of those who are its rightful owners. That, more than anything, is the truth that now sustains me- along with one other thing too, which is a belief I hold in my heart. I know, without a shred of doubt, that I would instantly trade the medal and everything attached to it if it would bring back even one of my missing comrades in arms."

"The exact words from the citation of a Medal of Honor recipient state: "For conspicious gallantry and intrepidity, at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty." Those last words are particularly meaningful: "above and beyond the call of duty." Duty. Robert E. Lee used that word in explaining why he had to leave the Union Army and go into the Confederate Army. He said, "Duty is the sublimest word of them all." Lee was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, the institution I also attended. Its motto is "Duty, Honor, Country.""

"Over the years I've met many people who were heroes, and the interesting thing I've found about every single one of them, bar one, was that they did not think of themselves as heroes. They would say things like, "I couldn't leave my buddy out there. I couldn't do that." Or, someone would say, "Those bastards were shooting at us, and I was going to shoot back before one of my men got hurt." Or, "Shucks, sir, it was my duty." They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, valor is also in the eye of the beholder. Not one of the people who hold the Medal of Honor said at the time he took action, "Well, I think I'm getting ready to carry out a heroic act." Absolutely not. In the minds of every single one of them at the time was something like, "Gosh, I've got to do it, because it's my duty to my country." Not even that. Rather, "It's my duty to my outfit." And not even that. "It's my duty to my buddy on my right, or my buddy on my left. That's what it was all about, as the stories in this volume will show. That's truly what it was all about. And somebody else- the recipients probably don't even know to this day who- saw them do it. And said, "There's a hero." And truly the recipients of this great award, I am sure, even to this day would say, "Gosh, it was just my duty. It was just my job. It was just my buddy It was just my outfit. I had to do it." And that's what makes them heroes in my mind. The men who tell their stories in this book- indeed all the recipients of the Medal of Honor- embody the sense of duty in its deepest form. We thank them for doing their duty in serving their country."

"More than a dozen Congressional Medal of Honor recipients endorsed former President Trump in the 2024 presidential race. "We, 15 recipients of the Medal of Honor, having served this great nation in wars, support and endorse Donald J. Trump for President of the United States," they wrote. The recipients include those who have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam."

"In an apparent swipe at Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the recipients said they believe that "fabricating military service is beneath the dignity of a veteran and demeaning to those who have served honorably in the Armed Forces." Walz had come under fire for his service in the Minnesota National Guard. He retired in 2005 after 24 years of service ahead of his battalion being deployed to Iraq. He’s been faced with accusations of "stolen valor," with some saying he retired early and did not complete trainings. The recipients also said they believe that "the enemies of freedom must be defeated," and that "the flag is a powerful symbol of freedom." "We believe the United States of America is the greatest nation the world has ever imagined. We believe in mutually pledging to every American our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor," they wrote. "We believe in Donald Trump." Meanwhile, the Harris-Walz campaign touted in September the endorsements from "a bipartisan group of more than 700 national security leaders and former military officials." The Harris-Walz campaign declined to comment on the Trump endorsements when reached Friday by Fox News Digital."

"As a soldier I know what the medal means. As a Senator I learned what the intent of Congress was in providing for this recognition of valor. But as President I realize that little is generally known of the history of this great decoration, or of the men who, during the last 172 years, have displayed the highest type of heroism in helping to build this Land of Liberty to its present position of world leadership."

"May the courage and heroism of which this medal is a symbol always remind us of our debt to these men, and clearly point to the personal responsibility which every American has today to share in the work of building a healthy and peaceful world."

"On February 4 an invitation to the White House interrupted this schedule. My family and I were ushered into President Roosevelt's office. I had known the President, who with his charm made us feel completely at ease. With my wife and son looking on he read a citation and placed the Medal of Honor around my neck."

"From then on, for me, it was just busy times with the Medal, but I had good teachers. A lot of the generals told me, 'Don't blow it. Watch your drinking. Don't cause any trouble because you've earned the highest medal. You're always gonna be showtime. You can't get a parking ticket.' And that's the hardest part, you can't... [live it up] like the old college days. But you've really got to watch yourself. And I think they knew that I've always been a "we" man, us." I don't think I'll ever change. That Medal could have gone to sixty-eight other guys that day, really could. So when I wear it, I wear it for everyone who's ever served. That's the way I look at the Medal."

"They're very confident people. It's amazing. We all came from little bitty towns. A lot of us came from very poor families. They're down-to-earth people. They're not braggers. They just seem like they were put into a position for a very short period and whatever came out of them came out ten times stronger than you would ever expect your body or person to do in a particular situation. What drove me was I cared so much for my Marines. That was my family, and my responsibility was to lead them. That's a strong loyalty that comes from every Medal recipient I've met, and they're patriotic. It's like those country-and-western songs I grew up with. You know, they love kids, dogs, and all women."

"My first contact with a Medal of Honor recipient didn't take place until 1957, long after I'd returned to civilian life and resumed my career in broadcast journalism. By that time, I was doing a weekly interview show on ABC, and one night the object of my scrutiny was a U.S. Army veteran who'd been getting a lot of controversial attention- as well as the Medal of Honor- for his heroic exploits during World War II. His square name was Charles Kelly, but to those familiar with his story, he was mainly known by his colorful nickname- "Commando" Kelly. (In our interview that night, I called him Chuck.) In introducing Kelly to our viewers, I marveled at his various feats of valor, especially at the Battle of Salerno, where, single-handed, he'd killed 40 German soldiers in a span of 20 minutes. But the controversy about Kelly dealt with his failure to flourish in civilian life. During the postwar years he had tried his hand at a number of jobs and business ventures, and nothing had panned out very well. There were reports that his booze problems had been at the root of his problems, and we talked about that. And as I would later discover, Kelly was not the only Medal of Honor recipient who had the melancholy experience of going from war hero to washout."

"General George Patton once said that he would have given his immortal soul for the medal, and at least two occupants of the White House- Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson- told recipients they would rather have the medal than be president. Incidentally, when the presentation ceremonies are held at the White House, it is customary for the President- the commander in chief of our Armed Forces- to salute the recipient, who then returns the salute. That tradition extends throughout the chain of command: When a recipient is wearing the Medal of Honor, he is generally the one to be saluted first, regardless of how low his rank may be."