POSTED: 10:59 AM CDT Mar 18, 2014
UPDATED: 12:20 PM CDT Mar 18, 2014
...President Barack Obama (click here) will honor 24 Army veterans with the Medal of
Honor -- the country's highest military award, given to American
soldiers who display "gallantry above and beyond the call of duty " --
for their combat actions in Vietnam, Korea and World War II. Only three of the soldiers are alive to receive the recognition.
The rest -- soldiers with last names including Garcia and Weinstein and Negron -- are dead.
For the few who survive, like Melvin Morris, this day has been more than 40 years in the making.
He was fresh-faced and 19 when he volunteered to go to Vietnam. In 1969, the Army Green Beret "charged into a hail of fire" to save his injured comrades and retrieve the bodies of the fallen, even though he was shot several times and bleeding. The Army would later say his actions on the battlefield that day showed "determination possessed by few men."
He was honored in 1970 with the Army's Distinguished Service Cross award....
The rest -- soldiers with last names including Garcia and Weinstein and Negron -- are dead.
For the few who survive, like Melvin Morris, this day has been more than 40 years in the making.
He was fresh-faced and 19 when he volunteered to go to Vietnam. In 1969, the Army Green Beret "charged into a hail of fire" to save his injured comrades and retrieve the bodies of the fallen, even though he was shot several times and bleeding. The Army would later say his actions on the battlefield that day showed "determination possessed by few men."
He was honored in 1970 with the Army's Distinguished Service Cross award....
