As we come back from this July 4th holiday weekend, I ran across stories of five Congressional Medal of Honor recipients which touched me to the core. These men are basically ordinary individuals who performed extraordinary acts. They went back again and again into enemy territories to protect their regiments, taking fire and shrapnel for hours upon hours, and each one literally risking their lives for another human being. Up front and personal….to serve our country. One was an automechanic, one legally blind in one eye before he was drafted, and one was of Japanese origin whose wife was actually detained in the Japanese-American Internment camps while he fought in WWII. Please take the 4-5 minutes to read about them and the impressive reasons for their citations. It will humble and inspire you. Walter D. Ehlers, Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army, WWII Hiroshi Miyamura, Corporal, U.S. Army, Korea Alfred V. Rascon, Specialist Fourth Class, U.S. Army, Vietnam Richard A. Pittman, Lance Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps, Vietnam Michael Thornton, Petty Officer, U.S. Navy, Vietnam As Michael Thornton humbly offers: “You can only take your memories, your word, and your honor to the grave.” May we all strive to live those words. We owe thousands an enormous debt of gratitude for their sacrifices to preserve our freedoms. God Bless America. And may God bless those who are serving today to preserve our American values.
Thank you for sharing these inspiring accounts of heroism. I get chills imagining what we might accomplish as a nation if more of us approached “another day at the office” with the commitment and tenacity that those heroes directed toward “just doing their job.”