Monday, July 6, 2009

Medal of Honor Silver Star: In his own words

Most of us have simply no idea of they type of action that leads to the award of the Medal of Honor Silver Star. Certainly, a lot of the men never see it - it's often awarded posthumously.

It's made even harder to comprehend by the astonishing humility of the men who receive the medal. Listening to Sgt. John Traylor, you'd think this was your basic day at the office.



Via the ever incredible Internet Archive.

UPDATE 6 July 2009 19:17: Silver Star, not Medal of Honor. Thanks for ASM826 in the comments.

4 comments:

ASM826 said...

Borepatch,

Heck of a story, although his award for this was the Silver Star, not the MOH. Might want to update your title.

Think of all the things these men did that was never noted or recorded. Sometimes there were no surviving witnesses, sometimes it wasn't seen, but the bravery of the action was the same.

ASM826

Eagle said...

These men were doing what they were trained to do, and none of them asked for thanks or a reward simply for doing what they knew they had to do.

Kerry went *looking* for a medal -- and then faked his "throwing it away" when it suited his political ambition.

And there's the difference: the REAL heroes shy away from the limelight.

\burt
Honorable Discharge, US Navy '72-'82

Anonymous said...

Puts a difficult day at work into perspective! I'm curious about when this was filmed; the quality is quite good, better than you'd expect for his age.

Jim

Borepatch said...

Jim, I don't know when it was filmed. There's great stuff in the Internet Archive, but often there's very little background information to go with it.