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Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
MIKE COLALILLO
Private First Class, U.S. Army Company C, 398th Infantry, 100th Infantry Division
Mike Colalillo, one of nine children, was born shortly after his parents emigrated from Italy. He grew up in a tough neighborhood in Duluth, Minnesota, and left high school without graduating. Drafted in 1944, he was an eighteen-year-old private when he landed with the 100th Army Infantry Division at Marseille that October. His unit was engaged in constant combat over the next few months as it pushed up through central France and into Germany. Through the heartbreak of losing his comrades killed in the fighting, Colalillo hung on to memories of the rare funny moments as well: stealing chickens from a rundown farm, smoking cigars from a captured cigar factory.
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Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
WILLIAM R. CHARETTE
Hospital Corpsman third Class, U.S. Navy Attached to Company F, 2nd Battalion, Panmunjom, Korea, 1953 -- Sole Surviving Corpsman 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division
William Charette’s parents died when he was four, and he was raised by an uncle. After high school, he took a job on a Lake Michigan ferryboat, which led him to join the Navy. There was a shortage of medical corpsmen, so he volunteered. He worked in a Navy hospital for a year, then volunteered again, this time as a medic with the Marine Corps. He was assigned to a rifle company in the Seventh Marines in Korea. In the spring of 1953, Navy Corpsman Charette’s Marine unit was in an area near Panmunjom between North and South Korea, guarding the route to the South Korean capital of Seoul.
Discuss (1 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
JON R. CAVAIANI
Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Vietnam Training Advisory Group, Republic of Vietnam
Born in England, Jon Cavaiani came to America with his parents in 1947 at the age of four. Although he was classified 4-F because of an allergy to bee stings, and although he was married with two children, Cavaiani enlisted in the Army shortly after being naturalized in 1968. He qualified for Special Forces and arrived in Vietnam in the summer of 1970; later he joined the Studies and Observation Group (SOG), an unconventional warfare task force, and was soon leading clandestine operations against the North Vietnamese.
In the spring of 1971, Staff Sgt. Cavaiani was in charge of the security platoon for an isolated radio relay site deep in the northwesternmost outpost of South Vietnam near Khe Sanh. The mission of his unit, which comprised 70 indigenous troops and 13 Americans, was to provide security for this intelligence-gathering operation.
Discuss (6 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
HECTOR A. CAFFERATA
Private, U.S. Marine Corps Company F, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division
Hector Cafferata was a Marine reservist on inactive status when the Korean War broke out. At six feet two inches, 220 pounds, and a former semipro football player, Cafferata was a big, strong Marine. He also was an excellent marksman, having been a hunter since he was twelve years old.
On November 28, 1950, Cafferata’s company was on a barren Korean mountainside overlooking a narrow road near the Chosin Reservoir. Under the command of Captain William Barber, its orders were to hold the Tokong Pass, the escape route for two Marine regiments in the area in danger of being cut off. Cafferata was unaware that a massive Chinese unit was very close by.
Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
PATRICK H. BRADY
Major, U.S. Army Medical Service Corps, 54th Medical Detachment, 67th Medical Group, 44th Medical Brigade
Reserve officers training was mandatory at Patrick Brady’s college in the late 1950s. He hated it and eventually got booted out. He later got back into ROTC and was commissioned in the Medical Service Corps after graduation.
Brady’s first posting was to Berlin as a medical platoon leader at the time the Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961. Soon he was eager for new challenges, so he applied to flight school and became a helicopter pilot. In 1963, he went to Vietnam.
Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
PAUL W. BUCHA
Captain, U.S. Army Company D, 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry, 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division
A high school all-American swimmer in the early 1960s, Paul Bucha was offered athletic scholarships from schools such as Yale and Indiana University, but he chose West Point instead. After graduation, he got an MBA from Stanford University, then reported to Fort Campbell. In 1967, he arrived in Vietnam with the 187th Infantry as a captain in charge of an infantry company.
On March 16, 1968, as part of the U.S. forces’ effort to push the enemy away from Saigon after the Tet Offensive, Bucha’s 89-man company was inserted by helicopter into a suspected North Vietnamese stronghold southwest of Phuoc Vinh. For the next two days, the unit destroyed enemy fortifications and base camps and eliminated scattered resistance. Late in the afternoon of March 18, the lead element of the company, about 12 men, exchanged fire with enemy soldiers. Then suddenly the entire area exploded with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and claymore mines, and the 12 men were immediately pinned down.
Discuss (7 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
MELVIN E. BIDDLE
Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company B, 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment
After parachuting into southern France two months after D-Day, Melvin Biddle fought with the 517th Infantry Regiment as it made its way toward Germany. Enemy resistance appeared to be collapsing, and members of the 517th had begun practicing the victory parades they expected to be having back home, when on December 16, 1944, the German Army suddenly launched the counterattack that initiated the Battle of the Bulge.
On the morning of December 23, Pvt. First Class Biddle’s battalion was near the Belgian town of Soy, trying to rescue a company made up primarily of cooks and clerks that had been encircled by the German advance. Things got off to a very bad start. The two lead scouts of the battalion were injured and taken out of action when one of them stepped on a mine. The commanding officer then pointed at Biddle and barked, “You! Out front!” Crawling through the snowy underbrush of a densely wooded area, Biddle ran into a German outpost. He killed three snipers who appeared one after the other, then moved forward until he saw an enemy machine-gun nest, which he took out with hand grenades. Signaling his company to advance, he destroyed two more German machine-gun positions.
Discuss (16 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
GARY B. BEIKIRCH
Sergeant, U.S. Army Company B, 5th Special Forces Group, 1st Special Forces
Gary Beikirch followed his high school sweetheart to college in 1965. Within two months, she broke up with him, and he dropped out, figuring to get even with her by enlisting in the Green Berets. During his advanced training, Beikirch decided to become a medic.
By the summer of 1967, he was in Kontum Province, Vietnam, as part of the 4th Special Forces Group. His 12-man team was assigned to Camp Dak Seang, a village of Montagnard tribesmen in the Central Highlands -- a beautiful jungle environment of triple canopy forests, where tigers and enemy soldiers hid in the lush vegetation. The Montagnards were fiercely independent fighters who wore loincloths and had aligned themselves with the U.S. war effort. Accompanied by the Special Forces team, they conducted raids into Laos to disrupt North Vietnamese supply routes down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Early on April 1, 1970, a huge force of North Vietnamese attacked Camp Dak Seang. The Special Forces team called in gunships whose constant fire over the next few hours was the only thing that kept the camp from being overrun.
Discuss (9 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
HARVEY C. "BARNEY" BARNUM, JR.
First Lieutenant, U.S. Marines Corps Company H, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, 3rd Marine Division
At the Cheshire, Conn., high school military assembly in 1958, representatives of all branches of the military made presentations to the student body. After the Navy, Army and Air Force speakers were all interrupted by hoots and catcalls, the Marine recruiter stood up and gave a tongue-lashing to the rude students, as well as to the faculty members who had made no effort to correct their behavior. As he began to stalk out of the auditorium, he was surrounded by students eager to sign up. Among them was senior class president Harvey C. "Barney" Barnum, Jr.
In late 1965, Barnum a first lieutenant, arrived in Vietnam with the Ninth Marines. On the morning of December 18, as the battalion was moving through the heavy overgrowth in Quang Tin Province south of Da Nang, the area suddenly exploded with the fire from enemy rockets, mortars, and machine guns.
Discuss (6 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
VAN T. BARFOOT
Technical Sergeant, U.S. Army 157th Infantry, 45th Infantry Division
Later in his life, Van Barfoot would be hailed as one of the significant Native American heroes of World War II. His grandmother was a full-blooded Choctaw but his mother failed to enroll him with the government as a member of that tribe, so Barfoot grew up aware only that he had American Indian blood, not that he was an "official" Choctaw.
He enlisted in the Army in 1940, before the new selective service law authorizing the peacetime draft was passed by Congress, and he was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division. After his training, he participated in maneuvers in Louisiana and Puerto Rico. In December 1941, he was promoted to sergeant and assigned to the newly activated Headquarters Amphibious Force Atlantic Fleet at Quantico, Virginia. When the unit was inactivated in 1943, he was reassigned to the 157th Infantry.
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