"Perhaps now resigned to the verity that time waits for no one, recipients get together as often as possible, but forty years ago, when men now long gone were still young and were going to live forever, we gathered only every other year. At the first Medal of Honor Society dinner I attended, my tablemates included Charles "Commando" Kelly, the first recipient in Europe in World War II; the flamboyant Marine aviator Pappy Boyington; and the World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker, who sat to my immediate right. I was twenty-six and passing dinner rolls to a man who had piloted a biplane in dogfights against the Kaiser's "Flying Circus," before my father was born. And it is even more astonishing that also in attendance was Bill Seach, who was born in England in 1877 and had recieved the Medal of Honor for, among other exploits, leading a bayonet charge during the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900. These men, proud representatives of both their nation and the valor of their fallen comrades, are all gone now."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Jack H. Jacobs, If Not Now, When? Duty and Sacrifice in America's Time of Need (2008), hardcover, p. 271-272
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Medal_of_Honor
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Medal of Honor
70 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Medal of Honor →
Related Quotes
"Life to you was rich and sweet, Yet with a purpose high and brave, You willed it that your comrades keep What you so …"
"General Sladen told me then that I could stand at ease, and I was altogether more comfortable physically than I'd bee…"
"On April 4, 1997, the day before my pilgrimage, I visited Castle Aghinolfi from the German side of the lines. The inv…"
""Into the Hot Zone," the article Mick Ware writes about that night, is Time magazine's cover story less than two week…"
"They name me the first living recipient to earn the Medal of Honor for bravery in the Iraq War. A coworker of mine re…"
"I served with some of the greatest men I've ever met in my entire life. And I truly believe that 99 percent of our mi…"
"When President Reagan placed the Congressional Medal of Honor around my neck, it all came racing back to me. The bloo…"
"When I was a young man in the 1950s, right after World War II, there was a special category of hero everyone in Ameri…"
"I have learned from the MOH recipients invaluable and common lessons. They have an enduring humility about their hero…"
"There were more bullets in the air than stars in the sky. A wall of bullets at every one at the same time with one cr…"