Random Heroic Medal Of Honor Recipients And Their Intrepid Battlefield Deeds (20 items)

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  (#14) Kenneth Kays - Rescued Multiple Wounded Soldiers After Losing Part of His Leg

  The nightmare of jungle warfare reached a pinnacle during the Vietnam War. A hostile, foreign environment that supplied both sides with infinite camouflaged attack positions led to heavy casualties on both sides. Modern body armor and Kevlar had yet to be invented, which inevitably led to horrific wounds from booby-trapped explosives.

  On the night of May 7, 1970, Kenneth Kays was serving as a medic with the prestigious 101st Airborne Division. Their defensive positions were ambushed and a number of Kays’s fellow soldiers were killed and wounded. Without hesitation, Kays made his way to the perimeter, moving toward the enemy fire, to help the wounded. That’s when an explosive charge severed part of his left leg.

  Instead of treating himself or waiting to be helped by someone else, Kays fastened a tourniquet on his leg to slow the bleeding and continued toward the perimeter to assist the wounded. After finding, treating, and moving two men to relative safety, Kays again returned to the perimeter (still losing blood), this time continuing beyond enemy lines, to rescue another wounded American. It wasn’t until Kays was satisfied that the wounded men were treated and evacuated that he allowed a medic to focus on his own severed leg.
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  (#3) William Turner - Assaulted Enemy Positions with a Pistol to Save Stranded Soldiers

  The use of trenches in WWI flipped the traditional notion that high ground in combat has the advantage on its head. The area between opposing trenches was called no man’s land for a reason. It usually took a force of overwhelming numbers to advance on and capture enemy trenches. In this environment, William Turner and a small group of men found themselves separated from the rest of their company when German machine guns opened fire on them.

  Turner single-handedly rushed the machine gun with only his pistol, eliminating the gunners and taking the position. He immediately advanced to another enemy position some twenty-five yards away, just as the rest of his small detachment reached him. Although Turner was wounded three times, he continued to lead the charge over three successive enemy trenches. After running out of ammunition for his pistol, he engaged in hand-to-hand combat, before grabbing a rifle from a fallen enemy soldier.

  After running out of ammo again, Turner successfully charged yet another machine gun emplacement, using only his bayonet. He led the small group of men to resist a fierce counterattack until Turner was finally surrounded and killed in action. William Turner was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.
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  (#15) Randall Shughart & Gary Gordon - Held Off Hundreds of Militants with Four Guns

  Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down was not an exaggerated dramatization of what really happened on the Horn of Africa in 1993. US Army Special Operators were on their heels after two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down in Mogadishu’s urban jungle.

  On that day, Randall Shughart and Gary Gordon were providing sniper overwatch from a chopper when the second crash occurred. They quickly realized the four crew members were stranded with no hope of a quick reaction force from ground units. It took Shughart and Gordon all of two minutes to volunteer to be inserted on foot to provide assistance to the trapped crew. It would’ve happened sooner, but they had to radio in three requests to command to be choppered in.

  Armed only with sniper rifles and sidearm pistols, Shughart and Gordon were dropped in nearly 100 yards from the second crash and had to sprint through the maze of shanties, under fire from hundreds of Somalians. When they reached the crash site, they immediately dragged the crew to relative safety, then set up an exposed defensive perimeter, just the two of them, to hold off the attack.

  With their ammunition quickly diminishing, Shughart continued to provide cover fire while Gordon traversed from the wreckage back to the injured pilot to radio for help and provide him with a small amount of ammo for personal defense. He then rejoined Shughart, and the two men held off hundreds of attackers until their munitions were depleted and both were fatally wounded.

  The actions of Shughart and Gordon saved the life of the pilot Michael Durant. Randall Shughart and Gary Gordon were both awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.
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  (#8) Charles Berry - Fell on a Grenade to Save the Lives of Fellow Soldiers

  It’s hard to fathom how primitive military technology was during WWII. Without satellite imagery, unmanned drones, radar, nighttime reconnaissance, or night vision capabilities, WWII infantrymen only had moonlight and their ears to detect the enemy at night. It was relatively easy for both sides to advance into attack-ready positions under cover of darkness. That’s exactly what Japanese forces did to Charles Berry’s unit on Iwo Jima in March 1945.

  A surprise attack broke out in the middle of the night, while Berry manned a foxhole. Instead of the usual back-and-forth of machine gun fire, Berry quickly found himself in a pitched hand grenade duel. In the middle of the night, live grenades rained down on Berry and the other men in his foxhole, and he kept throwing them right back, rather than bailing out of the hole and finding cover elsewhere.

  Not knowing how much time was left on the fuses, Berry engaged in the deadliest game of hot potato, until a grenade landed in his foxhole he couldn’t get to in time. Instead of jumping out, Berry dove directly on top of the grenade without hesitation. He absorbed most of the blast and undoubtedly saved the men in his foxhole by sacrificing his own life. Charles Berry was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.
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  (#18) Ty Carter - Crossed an Open Area of Enemy Fire Multiple Times to Help the Wounded

  In 2009, Afghanistan experienced its most violent year since the initial US invasion. In October of that year, Combat Outpost (COP) Keating was in the process of being closed and consolidated with other bases. It was simply too isolated to merit continued operations. As a result, COP Keating only had 60 soldiers on hand. On October 3, 2009, those soldiers awoke to a coordinated assault by over three-hundred Taliban fighters. Carter and the others were outnumbered five to one. The battle for COP Keating has been referred to by some as the modern-day Alamo.

  COP Keating was positioned in a valley, surrounded by mountains on all four sides. Taliban fighters occupied the high ground in every direction. When the attack broke out, American soldiers were immediately pinned down and cut off from other positions around the base. Concentrated, heavy fire from the enemy quickly destroyed the majority of Keating’s structures and vehicles.

  When a forward position ran low on ammo, Ty Carter voluntarily ran 100 yards through a completely exposed gauntlet of enemy fire to resupply them, twice. After the second time, he remained in the isolated position to accurately return fire. After realizing a man was wounded and stranded nearby, Carter ran through the gauntlet again, provided life-extending first aid, and dragged the wounded man to safety.

  As the onslaught continued, Carter ran through the hail of enemy fire a fourth time to help a fallen soldier and recover the squad’s radio. Carter then assisted the wounded man through the 100 yards of hell, and got him to a relatively safe position. The radio he recovered allowed for better coordination for counterattack and evacuation efforts.
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  (#11) Bryant Womack - Attended Wounded Soldiers After Losing an Arm

  A frigid January night in Korea, just like Junior Edwards's, only this time it’s 1953. A mere six months before the end of the war. Bryant Womack was the only medic attached to his unit on a night foot patrol. After a run-in with a numerically superior force, Womack’s unit suffered severe casualties. He immediately began to render aid to the wounded and was seriously wounded himself early on.

  Womack refused medical attention, opting to assist his fellow soldiers, knowing he was the only medic. While treating one of them, Womack was struck by a mortar. The majority of his right arm was blown away. As a medic, Womack knew full well the consequences of delaying the field dressing to his wounds,yet he continued to treat other wounded men and provided direction to others in first aid techniques without regard for his own life. He collapsed from blood loss shortly thereafter and died while being carried away from the fire fight by his comrades.

  Bryant Womack was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.

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