For action this day in the Iron Triangle northwest of Saigon, Specialist Five Lawrence Joel, a medic with the 1st Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade earns the Medal of Honor, becoming the first living African American since the Spanish-American War to ...read more
Mike Dowe will bow his head this Veteran’s Day, and say a little prayer to the soul of the best soldier he ever knew. For Dowe, a Korean War vet, this isn’t just an annual commemoration. Every day for the 66 years since Father Emil Kapaun died in that Korean War prison camp, Dowe ...read more
Early on the morning of May 15, 1967, a familiar drone returned to the skies over Vietnam. A flock of American UH-1D “Huey” helicopters, including one piloted by Major Charles Kettles, roared overhead on a rescue mission. Earlier that day, the U.S. Army pilots from the 176th ...read more
Some 3,500 Americans have received the Medal of Honor since it was first introduced in the 1860s, but to date, only 19 have earned the military’s highest award for valor on two occasions. The first was Civil War cavalryman Thomas Ward Custer, younger brother of George Armstrong ...read more
In 1917, Henry Johnson was working as a railroad porter in Albany, New York, when the United States declared war on Germany. At the time, before the Selective Service Act introduced conscription, African-American volunteers were only allowed in four all-black regiments in the ...read more
As the Civil War’s bloodiest battle entered its third and final day on July 3, 1863, Union First Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing stood on a pivot point of history. The Confederacy had reached its furthest incursion into Union territory, but its forces had been successfully held at bay ...read more
1. At first, the idea of a Medal of Honor was dismissed as too “European.” During the American Revolution, George Washington established the first combat decoration in U.S. history, known as the Badge of Military Merit. After the conflict it fell into disuse, as did its ...read more
President Abraham Lincoln signs into law a measure calling for the awarding of a U.S. Army Medal of Honor, in the name of Congress, “to such noncommissioned officers and privates as shall most distinguish themselves by their gallantry in action, and other soldier-like qualities ...read more
The earliest military action to be revered with a Medal of Honor award is performed by Colonel Bernard J.D. Irwin, an assistant army surgeon serving in the first major U.S.-Apache conflict. Near Apache Pass, in southeastern Arizona, Irwin, an Irish-born doctor, volunteered to go ...read more
Private First Class Desmond T. Doss of Lynchburg, Virginia, is presented the Congressional Medal of Honor for outstanding bravery as a medical corpsman, the first conscientious objector in American history to receive the nation’s highest military award. When called on by his ...read more
Sergeant Duane D. Hackney is presented with the Air Force Cross for bravery in rescuing an Air Force pilot in Vietnam. He was the first living Air Force enlisted man to receive the award, the nation’s second highest award for bravery in action. ...read more
U.S.M.C. Lieutenant Frank Reasoner—who became the first Marine to be awarded the prestigious Medal of Honor for action in Vietnam—is killed by enemy fire on this day in 1965. Reasoner and his battalion had been on a sweep of a suspected Viet Cong area to deter any enemy ...read more
The first Medal of Honor awarded to a U.S. serviceman for action in Vietnam is presented to Capt. Roger Donlon of Saugerties, New York, for his heroic action earlier in the year. Captain Donlon and his Special Forces team were manning Camp Nam Dong, a mountain outpost near the ...read more
While returning to base from another mission, Air Force 1st Lt. James P. Fleming and four other Bell UH-1F helicopter pilots get an urgent message from an Army Special Forces team pinned down by enemy fire. Although several of the other helicopters had to leave the area because ...read more
In action this day near Phu Cuong, about 35 miles northwest of Saigon, PFC Milton Lee Olive III of Company B, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry, throws himself on an enemy grenade and saves four soldiers, including his platoon leader, 1st Lt. James Sanford. The action came during a ...read more
On this day, the most decorated man of the war, American Lt. Audie Murphy, is wounded in France. Born the son of Texas sharecroppers on June 20, 1924, Murphy served three years of active duty, beginning as a private, rising to the rank of staff sergeant, and finally winning a ...read more
