Silver Star Medal Recipients

"Our country has never in its history been involved in a war as controversial and as frustrating as the bitter struggle in which we are now engaged in Southeast Asia. No war has ever been fought under more trying circumstances, yet our young men in the field fight on with courage and a high morale never surpassed in the history of the Republic."

"War robs you mentally and physically, it drains you. Things don't thrill you anymore. It's a struggle everyday to find something interesting to do."

"I am in favor of no more war but as long as war clouds hover over the earth, as a citizen, I feel we should be prepared for the worst."

"Let me speak from my own personal experience for a moment. I was a soldier for a few years early in my life, and though I have been fortunate to win some success in other fields, I look back on the days I spent in uniform as the most rewarding of my entire career. There is no greater satisfaction, no greater opportunity, a man can have on this earth than the chance to stake the ultimate…his life…fighting for freedom and for country."

"I don't know what bravery is, sometimes it takes more courage to get up and run than to stay. You either just do it or you don't. I got so scared the first day in combat I just decided to go along with it."

"If you're afraid of anything, why not take a chance and do the thing you fear. Sometimes it's the only way to get over being afraid. The way I see it, if you're scared of something you'd better get busy and do something about it. I'd call that a challenge - and I believe that the way to grow is to meet all the challenges as they come along."

"People are very quick to ridicule others for showing fear. But we rarely know the secret springboards behind human action. The man who shows great fear today may be tomorrow's hero. Who are we to judge?"

"Challenge and Response…That’s what this great nation is all about. If we respond properly to the challenge these fine, young people confront us with…If we hand them a better nation than we received, I know they will not let us – or themselves – down. I don’t have the slightest doubt that they will build upon what they are given, and that the future of this great country is safe in their strong, resolute, young hands."

"Seems to me that if you're afraid or living with some big fear, you're not really living. You're only half alive. I don't care if it’s the boss you're scared of or a lot of people in a room or diving off of a dinky little board, you gotta get rid of it. You owe it to yourself. Makes sort of a zombie out of you being afraid. I mean you want to be free, don't you? And how can you if you are scared? That's prison. Fear's a jailer. Mind now, I'm not a professor on the subject. I just found it out for myself. But that's what I think."

"I feel no qualms; no pride, no remorse. There is only a weary indifference that will follow me through the war."

"It was one of those hot days and it got to be about a hundred degrees, and old Mike just got fed up and threw his books in the corner, and said, 'See ya later, Doc, I'm going to war.' Next thing we heard, he was in Italy with the 3rd Division, where he later was awarded the Medal of Honor and received a battlefield promotion."

"The Opinion page is an arena — sometimes a battlefield — for the exchange of ideas. Fire from the right, fire from the left. Fire from behind and from the front. And the newspaper, of course, fires its own salvos. When I was the editor of the opinion page, a ceasefire, in the form of an especially thoughtful op-ed or letter, was always welcome. One of the thoughtful people during my tenure was a guy named Ron Kurtz, of Monroe. In a letter published on these pages earlier this month, Kurtz suggested “rededicating military posts named after Confederate generals with names of those who received the Medal of Honor for their selfless heroism on the battlefields.” That’s a grand idea. Not only were these Confederate generals trying to tear the country apart, some were spectacularly inept. Let me just seize on Kurtz’s idea and push it forward a couple of notches: Name a base after Michael J. Daly, of Fairfield — no relation to me — who was awarded the medal in August 1945 by President Harry S. Truman. Daly was awarded the medal for his “selfless heroism,” as Kurtz put it, in the Allied assault on the ruined city of Nuremberg in April of that year. While advancing over a wall — a task he took on rather than sending other men — he was shot in the neck. One of his men cleared Daly’s airway of tissue so he could breathe. Daly survived the war and died in Fairfield in 2008 at age 83."

"Merrell's Medal of Honor was one of the last two awarded for deeds during the ground war in Europe. The other was earned the same day by another soldier of the 15th Infantry, 3d Division, Lieutenant Michael Daly of Company A. Daly, a twenty-year-old from Southport, Connecticut, had fought in every major battle from his days as a private first class with the 18th Infantry on Omaha Beach to Nuremberg, where he fought with the 3d Division. Already holding the Silver Star, the Purple Heart, and a battlefield commission, Daly "felt an obligation to protect the surviving members of the company. You do all the time. Maybe, in a way, more than normal, knowing the war was nearly over." Daly acted as the lead man for his troops as they fought toward the center of war-destroyed Nuremberg, although as commander of Company A, he could have relegated this task to others. The city was contested from one pile of rubble to another, each pile a small fortress for hardened SS troops who ferociously resisted every inch of the American advance. For four days the Americans went about the bloody task of rooting them out."

"Through the serendipity of a shared name — my mail to him; his to me — we became acquainted. Through a shared love of writing we became friends. In addition to his other attributes — compassion, humility, gentleness — he was a fine writer. Some of his works — scores of brief but beautifully composed notes he wrote to me regarding this column or that, and a blazingly powerful short autobiographic sketch he prepared for delivery to a high school class — are among my treasured possessions. Were a soldier in training — or an officer or drill instructor teaching those young soldiers — be curious enough to look up the story of Michael J. Daly, they’d see — far beyond the heroics of that long-ago day in Nuremberg — the qualities that constitute the citizen-warrior."

"Every man deserves a cause greater than himself... All of us here are privileged people, for we have been called to defend the most noble experiment the world has ever known- that man can but seek his destiny while living in freedom."

"Anyone would have done what I did. Luck is important in life, but in combat it is crucial. The bravest things are often done with God the only witness."

"Without courage there is no protection for our other values. Every man loses his courage at times. All of us should pray every morning that God will give us the courage to do what is right. And remember when you pray that if you rise at all a better man- your prayer has been answered. Never underestimate the good that one man can do... Remember us as long as you can. We will never forget you."

"Author Stephen Ochs will tell the fascinating tale of late Fairfield native Michael J. Daly - from his "hell-raising youth" to his heroics on the WWII battlefield to his tireless voluntarism at St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport - at 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 23, 2013, at the Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield. Ochs' talk is free and open to the public. Ochs, an instructor in the history department at Georgetown Preparatory School of Maryland, is the author of "A Cause Greater Than Self: The Journey of Captain Michael J. Daly, World War II Medal of Honor Recipient" (Texas A & M Press, 2012). His book chronicles Capt. Daly’s memorable life, revealing how a family disappointment who was kicked out of West Point evolved into a man devoted to others. Starting as an enlisted man, Daly rose through the ranks to become a captain and trusted company commander, bravely earning three Silver Stars, a Bronze Star with a "V" attachment for valor, two Purple Hearts and the Medal of Honor. After returning from war, Daly was a longtime board member at St. Vincent’s Medical Center, where he championed the cause of the indigent poor and terminally ill. He was posthumously awarded the first Fairfield Award from the Fairfield Museum and History Center for his life of service. The Museum is co-sponsoring his appearance at the Bookstore with the University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program and its Learning for a Lifetime Program. Ochs' book has received high praise from critics and fellow authors alike. "I'm not aware of recent works that so well document events in small units, particularly those of the campaign in Southern France and Germany," wrote Edward G. Miller, author of "A Dark and Bloody Ground." "The author’s superb source materials from the Daly family and veterans is what set this story apart." A Washington Post reviewer cited Ochs' ability to interweave Daly's career with the rise of his Irish Catholic family. "Throughout the narrative, Daly's tactical brilliance in leading a squad, a platoon and a company shine through," wrote Bing West."

"I can't talk very well but I want to say that this is the 'swellest' thing that ever happened to me. A heck of a lot sweller than getting the medal from the President."

"World War II significantly impacted school life and would draw over 400 alumni into the armed forces. One of those, Captain Michael J. Daly ’45, received the Medal of Honor for his heroism during the battle for Nuremberg, Germany, in April 1945. Daly later recalled that when President Harry S. Truman draped the medal around his neck at the White House on August 23, 1945, he felt a mixture of pride and humility, as well as grief for those he considered the real heroes – “the guys who didn’t come home.” Twelve of those were fellow alumni of Georgetown Prep, who were drawn from classes that spanned the 15 years from 1928 through 1943."

"Everyone has a breaking point. You have a reservoir, but it can dry up if you are in combat too long. If a person had been in combat too long, he deserved some special consideration."

"You've got to be careful. You can become a professional hero. There's an awful sadness with that. You spend your life going from ceremony to ceremony. You have to move on. Life is a long-distance race. If too much of your life is centered on things you did early- there's a sadness. You can only stand up and hear what you did a few times. It's something you did at one time. There is also an embarrassment about the killing aspect. You don't want to be known for killing."

"Some people blame their misfortunes on it. It must be put in perspective. It is a purely personal thing. Your country does not owe you anything because you received this medal. After all, it was my [good] fortune that somebody wasn't shooting straight."

"When things hang in the balance, it is the infantry that a country calls on. It falls on them to close with the enemy and decide the day... We lost some of our best people... They were often men who took the most chances and without whom you could never win a battle. They came from every walk of life- they represented the very best of my generation. You would have been proud to serve with them. As a platoon leader and company commander they sustained me then just as they sustain me now."

"Early in the morning of 18 April 1945, he led his company through the shell-battered, sniper-infested wreckage of Nuremberg, Germany. When blistering machinegun fire caught his unit in an exposed position, he ordered his men to take cover, dashed forward alone, and, as bullets whined about him, shot the 3-man guncrew with his carbine. Continuing the advance at the head of his company, he located an enemy patrol armed with rocket launchers which threatened friendly armor. He again went forward alone, secured a vantage point and opened fire on the Germans. Immediately he became the target for concentrated machine pistol and rocket fire, which blasted the rubble about him. Calmly, he continued to shoot at the patrol until he had killed all 6 enemy infantrymen. Continuing boldly far in front of his company, he entered a park, where as his men advanced, a German machinegun opened up on them without warning. With his carbine, he killed the gunner; and then, from a completely exposed position, he directed machinegun fire on the remainder of the crew until all were dead. In a final duel, he wiped out a third machinegun emplacement with rifle fire at a range of 10 yards. By fearlessly engaging in 4 single-handed fire fights with a desperate, powerfully armed enemy, Lt. DALY, voluntarily taking all major risks himself and protecting his men at every opportunity, killed 15 Germans, silenced 3 enemy machineguns and wiped out an entire enemy patrol. His heroism during the lone bitter struggle with fanatical enemy forces was an inspiration to the valiant Americans who took Nuremberg"

"Alumni, of course, were in the military from the very earliest stages of the war, some even before Pearl Harbor. By early 1943 over two hundred alumni were on active duty and a year later this figure had climbed to four hundred. Occasionally an alumnus would return to the School and invariably end up by speaking to the assembled student body and providing a firsthand account of action in the theater from which he had come. Notices of service awards to alumni were read. (The Prep could boast of a Medal of Honor awardee in Michael Daly '41.) And sadly, word would inevitably arrive, from time to time, of a death in action. (More than a dozen alumni were to give their lives before VJ Day)."

"April 18 was the second day of the attack. Daly was scouting a rail bridge that led into the city when a German machine gun caught him and his men in the open. He charged forward, running to within fifty yards of the Germans before he opened fire with his carbine and killed the three gunners. He again pushed ahead of his company, advancing on a house that contained a German antitank gun. In the words of one of his men, he was "taking his life in his hands and we all knew it." As he worked his way to the house, rifle fire kicked up the dust around him. With only his carbine, Daly killed all six Germans manning the antitank equipment. Then, when he saw a long-time friend fall in the assault, Daly, in "hot blood," twice more led attacks on German machine-gun positions, each time moving to within pointblank range while directing the fire of his troops on the Germans. At one critical point, he seized a discarded M1, crawled forward to within ten yards of a German machine-gun nest, and killed the Gunners, securing the position. Daly was wounded badly in the face the following day. Once he recovered he was shipped home. Like so many medal recipients, Daly refused to see his award as a testament to individual heroism. "The medal is very important to me..." he later said, "to insure the memory of those who died.""

"Michael Daly entered West Point in 1942, but he left after one year to enlist as a private in the infantry. He trained in England and waded ashore on Omaha Beach on D-Day with the 1st Infantry Division, known as "the Big Red One." After moving through France and into Germany, Daly was wounded near Aachen; he recuperated in England, then returned to action assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division and was given a battlefield commission as a second lieutenant. Early on the morning of April 18, 1945, First Lieutenant Daly was in command of an infantry company moving through the rubble on the outskirts of Nuremberg, where bombed-out houses provided good cover for German snipers. As the Americans were going down the city's main thoroughfare, an enemy machine gun suddenly opened up from across a city square. As his men fell all around him, Daly charged the German position and killed the three-man crew with his carbine. Continuing on ahead of his unit, he came upon an enemy patrol armed with rocket launchers entrenched in the shell of a house and ready to ambush American tanks. He again opened fire with his carbine. Though the Germans responded by firing rockets, he held his ground and kept shooting until he had killed all six members of the patrol. As he continued to move ahead of his company, Daly entered what had been a city park. A German machine gun began firing from close range. When one of his men was killed, he picked up the soldier's rifle and used it to shoot both enemy gunners. In all, he killed fifteen Germans that afternoon and took out three machine-gun positions. The next day, as he was leading his company into action, Daly was shot in the face; the bullet entered at one ear and exited the opposite cheek. Falling to the ground, he felt that he might drown in his own blood until one of his men cleared his throat. Daly received medical treatment in England and in the States until mid-1946 but was well enough to travel to the White House on August 23, 1945, to receive the Medal of Honor from President Harry Truman. The next day, he was back home in Connecticut, riding in a motorcade. Alongside him was his father, Paul Daly, a World War I recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross who had twice been recommended for the Medal of Honor. The elder Daly had reentered the Army after Pearl Harbor, was severely wounded while serving as a regimental commander in northern France, and was sent back to the States to recuperate. Sitting next to him that day, Michael wished his father had received the medal he was wearing around his neck."

"I was darn lucky, and that's an understatement, but we should never forget, on this V-J Day, the boys who never came back and should receive the medals."

"People ask if your first kill is hard. It was easy as squashing a bug. I released a lot of anger."

"I drove trucks. I drove Jeeps. I tried to be versatile. I didn't say a word to nobody. I just did it. If I told them, they'd have me all over the damn place. So I played dumb like a fox. Keep your mouth shut, never volunteer. You got to learn that real fast. When you first come in everybody volunteers. Once you volunteer, you think, What the hell did I do that for? I said to myself, Keep your mouth shut, you dummy. You don't know what the hell they're going to throw at you. It's usually the worst thing in the world. Never volunteer. Turn your back and run the other way. Say you didn't hear it."

"I first made contact with Bill on November 18, 1999- the night before my fourth and final audition for the miniseries. It was a gig I wanted more than anything in my life and I was hoping that a last-minute call would give me some kind of good luck- some edge that would make the difference. I had read the book a few months before our first chat and had spent every waking moment since becoming an expert on all things Easy Company and all things Guarnere. The more I learned about him the more superhuman he became to me. From his rough-and-tumble childhood on the streets of Depression-era South Philly to his losing a leg in Bastogne to save the life of his friend- it all added up to a man unlike any other I had ever known. A hero. A legend, and I needed to hear his voice to make him "real" to me."

"In June, we got attached to the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles. They were formed August 1942. They had the 502nd as their only parachute regiment. Then they added the 506th and the 501st. We didn't know what the 101st was about. We were hoping to go to the 82nd because they were going overseas real fast. The 82nd Airborne was well established. They were a damn good outfit. They were in Africa, and they fought on D-Day and up in Holland and Bastogne, too. When we became part of the Screaming Eagles, we put on our eagle patches, and we were so proud. Our division general was Maj. Gen. Bill Lee. He's the one who said, "We have no history, but we have a rendezvous with destiny." He never made it into combat. He had a heart attack before we left."

"I kept my eyes and ears open and my mouth shut. That's what I learned growing up in South Philly. You want to get educated? You observe, but you don't say a word."

"Combat was getting closer, and I took it upon myself to learn every gun that I could get my hands on. Taking initiative is part of what makes a person a little better. No one tells you to do it, but you do it."

"When you're a paratrooper, you're the elite of the Army, you're always on the front lines. You know you're going to pay the price. Then you had the German army. They were fighting the war for years. By World War II, they had it perfected, they had the best weapons in the world. We were no match for German artillery. Those Germans were technologically advanced for being a small country. They had the best fighters in the world, the Fallschirmjaeger, German paratroopers, and the SS- Nazis, even the Germans were scared of them. They were fearless, raised as boys to live and die for Hitler. Germany was prepared, and America was sound asleep. We didn't make the plans for it, kid."

"Camp Toccoa was only about one thing: weeding out the weaklings. Our training schedule was brutal, and the training was brutal- all physical conditioning, led by Captain Sobel. Sobel didn't look like an officer. He was kind of awkward, and all he did was scream. He was high-strung, ranted and raved, criticized everything, a mean son of a bitch. He'd punish you for the hell of it. He was a chickenshit. Any GI knows what chickenshit is. A tyrant, takes authority to an extreme, the type that would get their ass kicked if the situation was reversed!"

"My leadership abilities came through right away. You can tell the leaders, they're at the front, they're observers, they're always looking out for the guys. The kids who are leaders make good choices, think quickly, have good instincts, figure things out for themselves; they don't wait to be told. They can read people and situations. If you lived on the streets, you done these things to survive. I got promoted to corporal pretty quick. It was just a promotion in stripes. I had two: one for private first class, and then corporal. The stripes went on both arms and showed your rank. Later at Camp Mackall, I was promoted to squad sergeant, leading the mortar squad. I never wanted to become a sergeant, it was just the way I was. Most of the men did not want to accept that kind of responsibility. They're smart. They know what it entails and they don't want no part of it."

"You have a tendency to think of wars as being fought in arenas set aside for fighting. But when you go through these farms and little towns, you realize wars are fought in people's backyards, stores, streets, and cities. It was all so very real then. It's real to me today."

"Paratroopers capture the attention of people due to the fact that we jumped out of planes. But we didn't have it as hard, for instance, as the guys in the 1st or 4th or 29th divisions, who were grinding it out day after day in Europe, many of whom were not pulled back from the line to England after thirty days like we were. Or beyond that, the poor guys who served in the Pacific. I wouldn't have traded with the guys in the Pacific for anything. None of them got the recognition we did."

"The word "freedom" is rather generic today, and in my mind, sadly, an ill-defined term. Many people think it simply means saying whatever you want and doing whatever you want whenever you want. But true freedom is easy to overlook today. Too many of our fellow citizens are willing to go to the polls and vote away the freedoms of themselves and others simply because they have been convinced of the supposed worthiness of some social goal."

"Ted Sten, the deputy in charge of the Long Beach office and my new supervisor, had a reputation for an acerbic personality and being difficult to work with. I reported for duty expecting the worst. To my surprise, Ted Sten greeted me warmly. "Hmmm. Buck Compton," he said. "You live where?" "North Hollywood." He grinned. "Boy, someone must sure be mad at you." He shook my hand. "Welcome aboard.""

"Although I was affected by the horrors of Bastogne, I do not believe I was clinically shell shocked, as the series portrays me. In real life, while I was hollering for the medic, trying to figure out what to do, I remember two distinct thoughts: How are we going to help the wounded guys?...Maybe this is the time the Germans are really going to get us all."

"I told the reporter that these so-called "peace protesters" were all incipient assassins. Free speech does not embrace any form of physical force, whether passive or active. A mob blocking the streets is using physical force and is not the same thing as protected free speech. People who are willing to resort to any form of physical force (because they are frustrated by the failure of their words to be effective) have progressed up the rungs of the ladder of violence. As each level of this ladder is climbed, history has shown that progressive degrees of physical violence fail to produce a desired political result, and it becomes easier to take the next step. At the top of this ladder is assassination. Cases in point: JFK, MLK, and RFK."

"Freedom and socialism cannot coexist. Our Constitution stands as a bulwark against collectivism and guarantees us a free-enterprise capitalist economy, where we are free to contract for and enjoy the fruits of our labor. Freedoms that we fought for are being unthinkingly and frivolously squandered today in many places. Every time our fellow citizens fall prey to the class envy arguments and siren song of socialism, we dishonor those who have fought and died in previous wars. Collectivism as an ideology promises to redistribute wealth through the graduated income tax and estate tax. Collectivism sees nothing wrong with seizing private property without paying for it, all in the name of environmental protection. Collectivism ignores the precious blood that has been spilled in freedom's defense. The America I fought for was based on individual freedom, never collectivism. Think of it this way: The Nazis were socialists. The Communists in Korea and Vietnam were socialists. The terrorists of today are ideological socialists- they're certainly not proponents of individual freedoms. Terrorists want to knock out our form of government, which allows freedom of thought, travel, religion, and speech. They want to do away with our social climate, which allows us the room for dissenting and controversial opinions and practices. They want to destroy our economy, which allows for individual successes based on initiative and hard work."

"Sergeant Bill Guarnere sat with me on many of those nights. He was much more softhearted than he ever let on. In the series, it shows us together in a foxhole. In the background we can hear the Germans singing "Silent Night" not far away from us. I hand Guarnere a picture of my girlfriend back home, lamenting to Bill that she was finished with me- just in time for Christmas. I don't remember that ever happening, but this often did: Bill and I were supposed to take turns staying awake and sleeping. Often I'd wake up and he'd say in his South Philly accent, "Aw, go back to sleep, Lieutenant. I got it." I'd protest, but he'd always insist."

"Secrets have power over us. Only when secrets are revealed can truth be known and freedom brought about."

"Constantly we anticipated a large-scale nighttime attack. But day after day, night after night, it never came."

"Back at Toccoa, Easy Company had been led by Captain Herbert Sobel (portrayed in the Band of Brothers miniseries by David Schwimmer). Sobel was known for his excessive strictness, often revoking men's weekend passes for petty infractions and heaping up additional physical training on them during weekends and evenings. He once brought a court-martial against Winters for failing to inspect a latrine. Sobel's extreme training tactics paid off in some ways- he ended up creating a hardened and physically fit company. From all the tough training they received, Easy Company could boast the finest performance record in the regiment. Yet Sobel's men believed he lacked tactical and combat skills. After several of Sobel's noncommissioned officers refused to fight under him, believing him unfit to follow into battle, Sobel was reassigned to the Chilton Foliat Jump School, where he became a parachute instructor for noncombat officers. Lieutenant Thomas Meehan, a transfer from B Company, took over for Sobel. I never met Sobel personally, and it's been controversial as to whether Sobel was truly as inept as the miniseries made him out to be. Sobel's second son, Michael Sobel, has spoken out in his father's defense in recent years, and most veterans I know respect Michael for doing that. My good friend Don Malarkey, who was with Easy Company from the beginning, insists that Sobel had his good points. Sobel's contributions helped mold Easy Company into the formidable fighting force it came to be."

"As young people, my generation would see a lot of death. I don't think I ever grew accustomed to it. It came in darkness and fervor, by our airplanes, rifles, parachutes, and tanks. But there was something about that first death I experienced the summer of 1939 when I was just eighteen, years before the war, that stayed with me so strongly. Those first few seasons after my father died were dark indeed."