National Medal of Honor Day

America’s Ignorance of Her Heroes
by W. Thomas Smith, Jr
Townhall
During a recent commercial flight from Jacksonville (Fla.) to Baltimore, a flight attendant offered free drink coupons to any of the 150 passengers who could name just one of the five Medal of Honor recipients from the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Awkward moments of silence followed until one man, Navy veteran Dale Shelton of Annapolis, Maryland, spoke up and named Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith.
Shelton was correct: Smith received the award posthumously in 2005 for his actions during the April 2003 battle for Baghdad airport.
No other passenger was able to name a recipient.
The flight attendant then asked the passengers to name an American Idol winner. “The cabin lit up like a pinball machine as 43 passengers scrambled to push their attendant call button,” according to a piece by the American Forces Press Service. “Passengers named various Idol winners.”
The flight attendant then announced there would not be any free drink coupons for that answer, adding that naming an American Idol winner was not worth a drink.
Good for the flight attendant. Shame on the passengers and what their ignorance says about our greater society
For the record, the other four Medal of Honor recipients – all of whom, like Smith, received the award posthumously for post-9/11 actions – are Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham (for actions in April 2004), Navy SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy (June 2005), Navy SEAL Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Monsoor (Sept. 2006), and Army Spc. Ross McGinnis (Dec. 2006).
Which brings us to our recognition this week of National Medal of Honor Day, the significance of the award, and the necessity of honoring the heroes who wear it.
In 2007, Congress designated Mar. 25 (of each year) as National Medal of Honor Day: The date coinciding with the same date in 1863 when Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton presented six Union Army soldiers with the first-ever Medals of Honor.
More than 3,400 Medals of Honor have since been awarded up through the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Standards for receiving the award have stiffened to the point that most nominees today are killed in the action for which they are deemed worthy of the Medal. And every recipient of the Medal since the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993 has earned the decoration posthumously.
The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest military award for battlefield heroism. To receive it (no one wins it) the recipient’s gallantry in combat must be such that it is considered beyond that warranting a lesser-ranking – though also astronomically esteemed – decoration for valor like the Army’s Distinguished Service Cross, the Navy Cross, or the Air Force Cross.
Today there are only 98 living recipients of the Medal of Honor (out of a nation of 306-million people). The oldest living recipient is nearly 100. The youngest is 58. And since Mar. 25, 2007 – the first designated “National Medal of Honor Day” – 13 recipients have died.
Each year, the Medal of Honor Society holds a national convention for its living recipients and supporters (It will be held in Charleston, S.C. – my homestate and the Society’s hometown – in 2010.). But according to Society bylaws, when the number of living recipients drops to 25, the Society will disband.
So we’re losing these great men – and rapidly – and we will soon lose the Society. “So what?” the American Idol fans on the aforementioned commercial flight might wonder.
My response would be – and as I’ve often said – far too many of us assume America wins all of its wars because we have resources and technological superiority: and those things count to be sure. But it is our military prowess that wins battles. Military tradition is the lifeblood of that prowess and our living recipients of the Medal of Honor are the greatest living pillars of that tradition which in turn fuels the prowess.
We need our recipients. We need to recognize them and expand our national awareness of who they are and what the Medal itself represents. For as Pres. Abraham Lincoln said, “Any nation that does not honor its heroes, will not long endure.”

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As one of America’s most decorated soldiers, Col. Robert Howard served five tours in Vietnam and is the only soldier in our nation’s history to be nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor three times for three separate actions within a 13-month period.

During Vietnam, he served in the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) and spent most of his five tours in the Special Operations Group, which ran classified cross-border operations into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. These men carried out some of the most daring and dangerous missions ever conducted by the U.S. military.

Wounded 14 times in 54 months of combat duty in Vietnam, Robert Howard was awarded the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, The Silver Star, the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit and eight Purple Hearts.

National Medal of Honor Day 2009
By Col. Robert Howard (U.S. Army, Retired), Special to Stars and Stripes
When I joined the military in 1956, I was like many young men my age who enlisted; I wanted to protect the ideals of this country and also build a career. Little did I know that my experiences would lead to a Medal of Honor, and how poignant those lessons would be even now — 53 years later — during our current national hardship.
Just after Christmas in 1968, I was on a mission to rescue a missing American soldier in enemy controlled Vietnam. We had just left the landing zone when we were attacked and many of us critically wounded, including me. For the next three and half hours, I had one choice: to lay and wait, or keep fighting for my men.
If I waited, I gambled that things would get better while I did nothing. If I kept fighting, no matter how painful, I could stack the odds that recovery for my men and a safe exodus was achievable.
On National Medal of Honor Day (March 25) — an annual tribute that I and other recipients humbly appreciate — I encourage Americans to recognize that in untenable situations, selfless people make the difference.
The Medal of Honor has been awarded only 3,448 times since the Civil War, and I’m reminded regularly by my fellow recipients (only 98 are living today) that extraordinary things can be accomplished by ordinary people from all parts of America.
Hard times ask us to put a greater good before our own interests. It is sometimes physically or emotionally painful. Yet throughout history, you will find common men and women who fought selflessly in a variety of ways for something so much larger than just their own benefit.
Today, we’re fighting terrorism and the spread of tyranny. We’re challenged by market upheaval, joblessness and perhaps hunger. But the human spirit is resilient and can withstand more than sometimes we are able to immediately comprehend.
It’s up to each of us to not lay and wait for better days, but instead look for opportunities to make the lives of those around us better. National Medal of Honor Day is not a celebration. It is a solemn time to reflect on the freedom we enjoy, its price, and how our own bravery can improve the world around us.

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Wild Thing’s comment……..
I humbly thank you all for serving our country.

“A nation that does not honor it’s heros, will not long endure.” ~President Abraham Lincoln

….Thank you Ben.