Honoring Medal of Honor Recipients | Those Who Gave All (Marine Reacts)

Memorial Day a day to remember a fallen men and women let's look at some of the heroes that have lived and died on behalf of this country honor Medal of Honor recipients is the story of our nation's greatest military honor and it takes an action that is above and beyond the call of duty I made it my mind I wasn't gonna run there were no surrender the fight don't get going good until you surrounded my thought they can't just do it they can't get me I am going to survive this thing it is not an award a soldier seeks I don't want to be here a lot along died to be a hero today it is the highest medal given for exceptional bravery and courage you're not doing it for the country you're doing it for the one on your left and on your right that's a key point you just said you are doing it for the brother to the left and to the right of you and most Medal of Honor recipients are dead because they're protecting their brothers the military awarded two medals for the conflict in Somalia posthumous one for the war in Afghanistan posthumous and four for the first five years of the war in Iraq all posthumous all but one for covering grenades with their bodies [Music] sergeant Paul Smith was the first soldier awarded the Medal of Honor for action in Iraq September the 15th 1942 I was awarded this medal it's a bronze piece of brass cost about 85 cents and it hangs from a pail this Gallivan has got the goddess Minerva repulsing discord discord is this little dude down here in the corner with snakes in his hands this is the highest military decoration that the United States can give to its soldiers sailors Marines Coast Guard or airmen the Medal of Honor and I have never I don't believe been more frightened in my life than I was at that moment the rod that my body was shaking and it would not remain still and he put his left hand on my shoulder and said to me I would rather have this medal than to be President of the United States think about it for a second one percent of the country has been in the military what percent do you think our recipients of the Medal of Honor you're more likely to get hit by lightning five times than be a recipient Medal of Honor [Music] before the invasion of Iwo Jima American battleships pounded the island for three days in the greatest naval bombardment of World War two but the 21,000 Japanese were dug into impenetrable caves and concrete bunkers called pillboxes as the Marines struggled up Mount Suribachi the Japanese mowed them down with their machine guns at just five foot six corporal Hershel Williams had been turned down twice by the Marines after two days of fighting he was the only flamethrower left in his company we had tried to break through a line of pillboxes and we were constantly being attacked my company commander was extremely frustrated because he had lost so many of his men and he asked me if I thought I could do anything about some of those pill boxes with the flamethrower I don't remember what I said others said I said I'll try you ever have a chance to meet one of these metal of Honor recipients all you can do is stand there and all think about the heroic deeds that individual did on a specific day you wonder could you even get close to doing something like that the volcanic landscape gave Williams little cover for riflemen were his only protection as he crawled toward the bunkers I was approaching a pillbox and I saw smoke come out at the top of the pillbox I thought there's got to be an opening up there so I crawled around on the Blind Side to the top of the pillbox and here was a vent so I stuck my flamethrower down there and let it go so pillbox effectively is like a bunker you can see there that was a common term used during World War two [Music] in the scorching heat Williams crawled through the dirt towards the next pillbox as he did he realized the Japanese gunner could not angle his gun barrel low enough to hit him the bullets were hitting those tanks on my back and as a word Porsche it was shaking my body just like a jackhammer and I had enough sense to keep crawling forward rather than crawl backwards if I'd gone backwards I wouldn't be talking to you today [Music] for four hours Williams battled the Japanese silencing 7 pill boxes finally clearing a path for the Marines to advance and I had to use six flamethrowers during that four hour period my mind will not bring back to me how did I get those flamethrowers apparently the back got it myself and although I was scared out of my wits my training kept telling me this is what you do [Music] the heroes of any war and knell of Honor recipients will tell you the same the people didn't make it back I've got one in my family who died in Vietnam a Marine so I can speak to that and it affects the family for years of course back then there was only two medals a Purple Heart which they used to call the George Washington medal and also the mobile of Honor the first medals of Honor were given out for a raid to destroy a key Confederate rail line during the Civil War and for a half century after the Medal of Honor was handed out freely 864 men of the 27th Maine infantry were offered the medal to re-enlist the entire honor guard at Lincoln's funeral was given the Medal of Honor 24 were awarded for the Battle of Little Bighorn 56 for the invasion of Veracruz boy things have changed a lot with respect to receiving the Medal of Honor as Mexico that beer accrues every officer that went ashore got the Medal of Honor Congress realized the criteria for receiving a Medal of Honor needed tightening now it required actual conflict with the enemy distinguished by gallantry or intrepidity at the risk of life the classic example is falling on a grenade to save fellow soldiers later additional medals were created to form the pyramid of Honor at the very tip of the pyramid courses the Medal of Honor followed by the service crosses the Silver Star then the Bronze Star you have to risk your life for your fellow soldiers it takes an action that is above and beyond the call of duty a witness to the action writes a recommendation it makes its way up the chain of command to the top uniformed officer of the service branch then to the Secretary of the army navy or Air Force the Secretary of Defense and finally the president every detail of the action is scrutinized the process can take years [Music] and you know that certain political decisions get made along the way it disappears into the fog and the bureaucracy and somebody gets selected for a navy star so I'm gonna get selected for Medal of Honor we saw that with John Chapman I think it took 16 years after he died to receive the Medal of Honor when top officers voted on a Medal of Honor for Navy SEAL Mike Thornton there was one holdout Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Zumwalt so why are you voting no Lou he basically said how does the guy do that and still be alive heroes do not win wars by themselves but in every conflict there are men like Mike Thornton who in the heat of battle do things that defy belief the medal of honor is awarded for those actions [Music] in October 1972 Mike Thornton was 23 years old on his fourth tour of duty in Vietnam he had always wanted to be a Navy frogman we passed the enemy from 10 feet away and in some areas you consumed in the bond fire actually silhouette in themselves and while we were only outside as they neared the ocean thornton spotted two enemy soldiers on patrol outside a village he knocked one unconscious and signaled for tie a young Vietnamese officer on his first mission with Thornton to take out the other I'm going like this to him to move out to sneak up behind this guy knock him out eliminating or whatever needs to be done and he stands up and this guy is a hundred and something yards away from you no slide a mile and like that he's up there yelling like a mile win yelling get over here almost cost them their lives the startled North Vietnamese soldier turned and opened fire and I just start running because I knew his go ahead for that village [Music] there's about 50 to 75 of the militia coming flying at me and then I open fire on them Tommy came down off the sand and had a law rocket he was shooting into the trees like to break contact the firefight that we get boy things with terrible miss operation to get dropped off on the wrong spot from the get-go that sunrise lasted seven hours pinning the men down in the sand dunes they took his chai Khan grenade and they threw it over to my side in America goodies for seconds instantaneous go 1000 mm so I'm going 1,000 mm I grabbed this grenade and I throw it back and I won 6,000 7,000 no grenades they throw it back I'm going 8,000 9,000 I throw it back I'm going 11,000 12,000 and they throw it back and I said this grenades got to go off well it did and I rolled over our turnover and rolled away from the grenade it went off and I had hit six times in my back with shrapnel wounds finally the squad made it back to the beach I'm yelling Tom fall back fall back and I couldn't see Tommy and I saw Dan come running I said where's Tommy where's Tommy I said die was dead died was dead I said what do you mean you say we shot in the head Mike he's dead I said y'all stay here Tommy's laying on the side of the sand the bullet had entered in his left temple he lost his whole forehead his frontal lobe will part of his brain as I was gone as structure of his eye socket was gone and I eliminated these guys that were coming over the top of Tom and I eliminated them and I grabbed Tommy and I put him on and I hear this noise and I knew exactly what it was it was from the Newport News and Tommy had called into fire for a fact that first round hit blew me like 20 feet in the air then Tommy left my shoulders and flew off then I moved over to grab Tommy and he said Mike buddy and I said the SOB is still alive we got to the water's edge and I said we swim and I grabbed Tommy and when I was swimming you could see the surf line they were just shooting at us you see the bullets going through the water while look off to my right and there's my buddy little Kwon over there he had been shot through his right hip and his butt it was completely gone so I grabbed him and I put his arms over my neck and he grabbed Tommy and I put my arms underneath him and I started breast stroking and I looked across and the Newport News turn around and let the worst feel ever had in my life seeing that big ship turn around I said God where are they going where they're going if I was going to die we're a better place to die than within the arms of your fellow comrade can you imagine that you finally make it out you're shot you have shrapnel you're swimming out you see the ship and it's going the other direction wounded towing two men Thornton swam for more than two hours before they were rescued by a search party Norris and Kwon both survived one place where the enemy took a stand was at the Baghdad Airport where sergeant first class Paul Smith was leading his platoon Smith was a lifer a 33 year old with a wife and two children back home in Florida the kind of soldier that's the backbone of the army you do something perfect as a squad run through a perfect flawless he'd be like are a good job and I'll go do it again he'd keep you out till you know late hours of the night training on something you've already perfected that's important it seems like a nightmare when you're doing it as a young enlisted guy but what that platoon sergeant was doing was trying to save these young guys lives because he knew we were getting deployed on that hot morning in a walled courtyard at the Baghdad Airport all of Sergeant Smith's training and preparation were put to the test the squad was setting up a holding area for prisoners when they came under attack by about a hundred Iraqi soldiers for many of the men it was their first experience in combat ouch looking the Americans in the courtyard sergeant Smith started coming down telling us place this vehicle here we need this weapon here get your man up here everything was reaction for me knew exactly what to do and when to do it Smith calls for support from a Bradley Fighting Vehicle Bradley was the first vehicle through the gap but it quickly ran out of ammunition and it moved back after the Bradley pulled back the Americans only heavy weapon was the 50 caliber machine gun mounted on an m113 armored personnel carrier but the Iraqis landed a mortar round on it or at least for injured personnel in the vehicle so we got a vehicle there with a big weapon system but nobody was minding me Smith jumped into the m113 and took over the machine gun firing at the Iraqis attacking through the gate and from the tower sergeant Smith is sitting there yelling I need a driver so I jumped up in there he's telling me exactly where to drive as he's shooting on the 50 Cal he kept telling me all you got to do is keep me loaded and ducked down so I was just constantly going up making a couple rounds and he kept yelling at me the entire time get back down in the hatch he wanted me to get a shot the m113s machine gun is mounted on top leaving the upper half of the Gunners body unprotected he had no protection up there behind that weapon system at all we all hope we can make that sacrifice when called upon you guys think you could like sergeant Smith for a long period of time it was just him all in the enemy back as soon as the battle started another sergeant began recording the sounds of the firefight on a tape recorder you can actually hear on that tape when the 50 cals shooting the pause is when he was reloading and in returning fire again it was really rapid loud sound and then again you hear it go silent and you're expecting it to come back again and listen to it and it never came back I thought man I'm gonna be in trouble he is gonna yell at me because he's out of bullets and that's when I seen him slumped down into the seat blood running down his face and down his chest Paul Smith died a short while later by holding off the Iraqis for almost an hour he had kept the American position from being overrun we get rid of Mel pack up leave whence our Medrano ran up and told me that certain Smith had been wounded and then when the news came down the knee was actually dead was even a bigger shock those are the type of guys you think are never gonna get hurt you know your platoon sergeants the person who takes care of you and he's like your dad as many as 50 Iraqi soldiers were killed in the fight at the courtyard but Smith was the only American who died there he's putting on you and combating you to somebody that you work with but who were soldiers I mean what you understand the risk that's something that you as a soldier didn't have to know and you have to know and you have to push it to your family two years after his death Paul Smith's family accepted his Medal of Honor at the White House you don't go out and try to win the Medal of Honor if you do you're in the trouble because of a whole bunch of their ever partners you know they weren't trying to win it either this is feel do [Music] Wow look at that slide that's gut-wrenching to see and I think since this program has been several Medal of Honor recipients that are living but the grief that goes with that looks insurmountable [Music] when we wear the medal of honor we wear it for all of those that fought there were just witnesses that saw what we did the action has to be observed and most often it isn't observed there's nobody there to see what you've done everybody dies [Music] in the first six days of the invasion of Normandy in world war two nine soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor only two survived [Music] On June 6 1944 d-day sergeant Walter Ehlers landed on Omaha Beach in France a few hours later his brother Roland was killed on the same stretch of sand On June 9th fighting amid the notorious hedgerows of Normandy healers came face-to-face with a four-man German Patrol I couldn't capture him because it'll probably shot me and so I just automatically shot off for him real quick there the following day Ealy's unit came under fire from two sides the company commander ordered the men to pull back but he held his position I thought if we turn around and start withdrawing we're going to get killed and as I was firing on him I got hit in the back and it spun me around but I saw a guy in the hedgerow land that I just shot him on that way down I looked though there's my automatic rifleman laying on the field and I had to go get him because he was wounded and then I got back here and turned him over to the medics I went back and got the rifle back that's the only automatic rifle we have in his squad and I know we weren't going to get another one from anybody else Walter Ehlers was not the first or last man to earn the Medal of Honor for not following orders somebody asked me what were you thinking when you did and I said well I wasn't thinking if I'd been thinking I wouldn't have done it Hiroshi miyamura had joined the army at the end of World War two but never saw combat in April 1951 the corporal's machine-gun squad was defending a position on a Korean mountainside when the Chinese attacked fired was getting very heavy and I could see that eventually we're gonna be over and run because the Chinese were close by I had the fire Adam behind me so I gave the orders for my men to his draw I get them all killed instead of leaving the besieged to Hill with his men miyamura stayed behind to cover their withdrawal when his machine gun finally ran out of ammunition he descended the mountain through the enemy lines armed with only a rifle I ran into an enemy soldier a bayonet at him and charm at the same time this soldier had a grenade in his hand I could feel it drop on my leg and I just kicked back in it and it went all the hair was in these Medal of Honor recipients display is almost like something out of a movie it's just hard to believe there's people on this earth that are capable of that wounded miyamura crawled towards the road I was focus on a tank to Mars and I tried to get his attention and I started running but by that time that tank just took off I guess I ran about 50 yards so that I passed out and then a voice and English told me get up you're my prisoner miyamura squad made it back to safety he would be recommended for the Medal of Honor and called a hero by his country I think he's the word hero of a little carelessly I've known every man through my time to receive the Medal of Honor that spanish-american war the Boxer Rebellion the Philippine insurrection of banana Wars and I haven't ever heard one man used that term about himself sometimes I respect and the adulation that is given to you as a recipient of the Medal of Honor people kind of look at you as if you were something special every speech I've heard by Medal of Honor recipient they always talk about they're not heroes the heroes the guys that died next to him they're buddies - one person in particular I just want to be your friend I don't want to be your hero I would say that the average American could easily be a hero if he's in the right place at the right time and it happens what do you guys think about that could the average American be a hero if he's at the right place at the right time I sure hope so chief petty officer John Finn was in charge of armaments at the Naval Air Squadron on Kaneohe Bay Hawaii across the island from Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7th 1941 the United States was not yet at war Finn and his new wife Alice were in their bungalow all of a sudden I heard pop pop pop pop up I wondered who the hell's firing machine guns hey it's Sunday now I was in bed didn't have a stitch of clothes on I pulled on my dungaree pants and got decent and got right out into my car and I heard an airplane approaching my Stern and here were these two big old red meat bolts on the bottom of his wings clarin right at me I said boy this is the real McCoy it's a Japs he didn't get the memo about being politically correct for this program the Japanese dive bombers caught the American planes on the ground the airfield had no anti-aircraft guns just 30 and 50 caliber machine guns the planes carried he grabbed a gun and got it working I had to change parts cartridge stops they've got mixed up one front was in the rear I took that 30 caliber gun and put it up on a pile of lumber I shot at everyone that I could bear on and all of a sudden this guy started yelling to me I said get the hell back on your gun and I pointed planes coming they were on their way down to make another strike from the attack and he took Jersey step for it and nailed again three times and finally he got close enough to me say my gun is jammed well he said why the hell didn't you tell me I run up there cleared the stoppage cut right on those planes and fired up I remember one time thinking Jesus Christ why stand here and get killed but I didn't think about it very long Finn took more than 20 shrapnel wounds but kept shooting and I don't want for anybody to think I was fearless but there's fear and anger and I was so damn mad that we didn't have any gun mounts I think the danger chases fear away well anyone who is not afraid in combat isn't wired up completely because it's a very scary thing you would land in that helicopter and that rice paddy or that field and immediately your start going into that jungle quiet and all of a sudden all hell would break loose you have people shooting at you you don't know hordes coming fro you afraid the money because you didn't want to attract attention to yourself fear is an amazing tool I don't see it as a weakness at all fear can save your life but you have to not let it control you that's an outstanding point here that when you ran they coach up young guys but when it comes to the real test are you gonna be scared fearless or crazy I don't know what these guys are I'm glad we have them the events for which a man receives the Medal of Honor are always extremely interesting in almost every case they were faced with a circumstance where the outcome had been determined it was going one way and what they did was they pushed back the tide they changed history to sheer audacity through their own refusal to accept the circumstance that was coming their way I've wanted to live I thought they can't do this to me they can't get me I am going to survive this thing and I would never let myself think otherwise I made it my mind I wasn't gonna run now we're gonna render thanks for watching

Channel: Jamesons Travels

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Keywords: memorial day, memorial day tribute, medal of honor, congressional medal of honor, medal of honor stories, medal of honor recipient, veterans, veteran, usmc, iraq, pearl harbor, vietnam war, jamesons travels, marine reacts, reaction video, medal of honor frontline, posthumously, marine corps, united states marines, united states marine corps, armed forces, history of memorial day, memorial day for kids, kyle carpenter

Id: GR1bP8TmskQ

Length: 32min 2sec (1922 seconds)

Published: Mon May 25 2020