WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:23.720 This presentation of the Big Picture brings you part two of a special issue commemorating 00:23.720 --> 00:39.640 the Medal of Honor Centennial. 01:53.720 --> 02:20.080 This is a Hall of Glory where paintings and displays commemorate American military achievements. 02:20.080 --> 02:27.280 Ghosts walk here, their muffled tread keeping step to the drum roll of history. 02:27.280 --> 02:35.800 Ghosts walk these halls whose bodies sleep at Shiloh and by vineyards at Chateau Thierry 02:35.800 --> 02:41.680 and beneath coral beaches on islands burning in the sun. 02:41.680 --> 02:47.680 And in their company, the spirits of men still living, their manhood reached in flame and 02:47.680 --> 02:55.560 smoke somewhere in a German forest, a choked Pacific jungle, in the skies over Korea or 02:55.560 --> 02:58.800 on a carrier in the Pacific. 02:58.800 --> 03:05.100 They all assemble here, the spirits of men still living and men long dead for an eternal 03:05.100 --> 03:07.720 roll call. 03:07.720 --> 03:13.840 You simply hear it as you stand here, the long sweet voice of bugles whose echoes reach 03:13.840 --> 03:18.160 that part of men where pride stirs. 03:18.160 --> 03:22.680 And through those haunting echoes, you hear the call that never ceases. 03:22.680 --> 03:25.320 Bravery, bravery, bravery. 03:25.320 --> 03:36.440 And the answers return, here sir, here sir, here sir. 03:36.440 --> 03:41.240 Seven medals, symbols lusted with a gleam of gallantry form a pyramid of honor in the 03:41.240 --> 03:43.320 military service. 03:43.320 --> 03:49.160 The purple heart is for wounds received in action against an enemy. 03:49.160 --> 03:55.000 For heroic or meritorious achievement or service against an enemy not involving aerial flight, 03:55.000 --> 03:57.720 the bronze star. 03:57.720 --> 04:03.280 For heroism not involving actual conflict with an enemy, the soldier's medal. 04:03.280 --> 04:07.920 For heroism and extraordinary achievement while participating in actual flight, the 04:07.920 --> 04:11.280 distinguished flying cross. 04:11.280 --> 04:17.400 For gallantry in action, the silver star. 04:17.400 --> 04:22.600 For extraordinary heroism in military operations against an armed enemy, the distinguished 04:22.600 --> 04:24.960 service cross. 04:24.960 --> 04:30.840 And at the pinnacle of the pyramid, for gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above 04:30.840 --> 04:36.520 and beyond the call of duty, the Medal of Honor. 04:36.520 --> 04:45.400 Gallantry in tripidity beyond the call. 04:45.400 --> 04:54.600 What is courage? 04:54.600 --> 05:00.200 Men in many times and many circumstances have sought to define it as if by doing so they 05:00.200 --> 05:05.160 could crystallize its hard and special beauty. 05:05.160 --> 05:11.880 Like his revered man of letters, Mark Twain, once called courage resistance to fear. 05:11.880 --> 05:17.040 A man somewhat closer to our own time and a warrior refined it a little further. 05:17.040 --> 05:23.280 Courage he said is fear, holding on a minute longer. 05:23.280 --> 05:26.520 His name was General George S. Patton. 05:26.520 --> 05:31.760 Certainly courage is not exclusively a military quality, but its military associations go 05:31.760 --> 05:39.240 deep for the battlefield intensifies and strips to their fundamentals the toughest challenges 05:39.240 --> 05:41.640 that life can impose. 05:41.640 --> 05:47.880 For a man just to live in its environment and do his job well demands a measure of this 05:47.880 --> 05:53.640 royal virtue, which few men are called upon to display in their lives. 05:53.640 --> 06:03.280 Medals which stand out then in this atmosphere of constant bravery glow with a special quality. 06:03.280 --> 06:09.240 The medals with which the nation honors its military brave are each in its own way tributes 06:09.240 --> 06:11.240 to this virtue. 06:11.240 --> 06:16.320 And at the summit of the pyramid which these medals form the highest award the nation can 06:16.320 --> 06:18.840 give, the Medal of Honor. 06:18.840 --> 06:23.920 The war America entered in 1917 was a new kind of war. 06:23.920 --> 06:29.120 The truck and the tank and the machine gun had come and combat was never to be the same 06:29.120 --> 06:30.120 again. 06:30.120 --> 06:37.720 The war that lay waiting for the doughboy was one of massed firepower, long trench lines 06:37.720 --> 06:42.840 facing each other across the graveyard of a no man's land. 06:42.840 --> 06:47.680 Americans fought beside their European allies in the Great War, but they fought as integral 06:47.680 --> 06:49.960 American units. 06:49.960 --> 06:56.040 And they fought a vigorous offensive, an offensive of small units sweeping through heavily fortified 06:56.040 --> 07:01.600 German defenses in almost a suicidal way. 07:01.600 --> 07:05.640 What kind of face does courage wear in such a war? 07:05.640 --> 07:08.000 The one it has always worn. 07:08.000 --> 07:13.600 But the face of courage does not change, however much the weapons change with which the courageous 07:13.600 --> 07:18.480 man fights or the tactics and techniques of the battle he waged. 07:18.480 --> 07:24.580 In World War I, that special courage, the kind summoned by the man who takes his life 07:24.580 --> 07:30.680 in his hands to do what must be done above and beyond the call of duty, wore the faces 07:30.680 --> 07:32.760 of 95 brave men. 07:32.760 --> 07:37.920 Among them, the private who silenced four machine gun positions and was killed while 07:37.920 --> 07:40.200 storming the fifth alone. 07:40.200 --> 07:44.720 The captain who was cut down by machine gun fire while leading his company in an assault 07:44.720 --> 07:49.440 on a heavily defended position and continued forward on a stretcher. 07:49.440 --> 07:54.640 The corporal who made it possible for his unit to press its attack despite hostile fire 07:54.640 --> 08:00.200 by rushing a machine gun nest alone and beating off the enemy with his bayonet. 08:00.200 --> 08:05.840 And the legendary sergeant from Tennessee whose daring assault on an enemy position 08:05.840 --> 08:09.560 brought in 132 prisoners. 08:09.560 --> 08:16.480 Change in battle did find a new proving ground in World War I, the air. 08:16.480 --> 08:21.880 The airplane had barely emerged from its status as an interesting experiment and now it was 08:21.880 --> 08:25.040 a formidable weapon of war. 08:25.040 --> 08:30.160 And the ranks of Medal of Honor winners, men who had fought on land and sea, were increased 08:30.160 --> 08:38.680 by men who wrote their records of bravery in the sky. 08:38.680 --> 08:43.880 By men such as the flying lieutenant from Ohio who attacked seven enemy planes, shot 08:43.880 --> 08:54.240 down two of them and scattered the rest on the eve of the Argonne offensive. 08:54.240 --> 09:00.480 World War I, with its particular call on bravery and a kind of war new to the world at that 09:00.480 --> 09:04.520 time, saw the introduction of the airplane in combat. 09:04.520 --> 09:09.400 Scarcely a generation later, a second World War which would make demands on more men than 09:09.400 --> 09:14.480 ever in the nation's history, came to America on the wings of the same machine. 09:14.480 --> 09:18.720 Now a highly developed weapon of destruction. 09:18.720 --> 09:45.840 The war began in explosions, in chaos, in devastation, in defeat. 09:45.840 --> 09:50.200 Fourteen million Americans responded by training for the greatest and most destructive war 09:50.200 --> 09:51.200 in history. 09:51.200 --> 10:05.160 Four hundred thirty of them would earn the right to wear the Medal of Honor. 10:05.160 --> 10:09.120 Americans earned their Medals of Honor in virtually every spot on the globe where Americans 10:09.120 --> 10:17.960 fought. 10:17.960 --> 10:21.400 And how would each man win it? 10:21.400 --> 10:22.840 Bravely. 10:22.840 --> 10:24.600 Bravely. 10:24.600 --> 10:28.680 By standing for a moment in time alone. 10:28.680 --> 10:35.120 Lighted by a fire which rages in all men, but lights in a special few in special times, 10:35.120 --> 10:42.280 with a will to break the prison locks of fear and concern for self, and do at whatever cost 10:42.280 --> 10:54.000 the job at hand. 10:54.000 --> 10:55.520 Who was he? 10:55.520 --> 11:03.980 The man who served above and beyond the call of duty in World War II. 11:03.980 --> 11:10.240 He was a Marine from Ohio, private first class serving on Guadalcanal. 11:10.240 --> 11:14.000 His machine gun emplacement took the full brunt of an all-out assault. 11:14.000 --> 11:18.160 His orders were, hold the position. 11:18.160 --> 11:46.400 All through the night he held off the Japanese. 11:46.400 --> 11:51.880 Fiery and exhausted, toward morning, he did not see an enemy soldier approach until too 11:51.880 --> 11:53.880 late. 11:53.880 --> 12:09.280 He leaped up, absorbed the violence in his own body, and yielded up his life. 12:09.280 --> 12:14.800 He was an Army Lieutenant from Rhode Island, who led his men toward a bunker on an enemy-held 12:14.800 --> 12:16.640 hill in Italy. 12:16.640 --> 12:21.160 His men covered him as he advanced alone, and threw phosphorus grenades into the enemy's 12:21.160 --> 12:22.860 position. 12:22.860 --> 12:25.040 As the defenders emerged, he shot them. 12:25.040 --> 12:45.200 He led his men forward to break through the enemy line. 12:45.200 --> 12:49.560 He was a platoon leader whose platoon was pinned down by Germans, blocking an American 12:49.560 --> 12:50.560 advance. 12:50.560 --> 12:55.160 Ordering his men to cover him, he went forward alone and destroyed the enemy's stronghold. 12:55.160 --> 13:01.000 When his job was done, he brought his men forward, and in the process, memorialized 13:01.000 --> 13:13.320 the heroic stance of leadership wherever men fight. 13:13.320 --> 13:19.240 He was a Naval officer, commander of a submarine coordinated attack group off Truk Island. 13:19.240 --> 13:25.080 He alone of the group possessed secret intelligence information of our submarine strategy. 13:25.080 --> 13:43.320 He carried out his secret orders, and the enemy paid dearly. 13:43.320 --> 14:11.720 First he stopped open fire of artillery and Playing be Powder. 14:11.720 --> 14:24.720 Then all at once his own flag submarine was rocked and battered by Japanese depth charges. 14:41.720 --> 14:57.160 The damage was soon beyond repair. The commander decided to surface the flagship and engage the 14:57.160 --> 15:04.200 enemy in a gunfight so the men might have a chance to abandon ship and live. But for himself, 15:04.200 --> 15:11.320 the decision he made was considerably different. Rather than risk capture and possibly reveal 15:11.320 --> 15:17.280 secret plans under enemy torture or use of drugs, he decided that he would remain aboard the vessel. 15:17.280 --> 15:29.320 He would stay with it in its final plunge to the bottom. He was an army lieutenant from Texas. When 15:29.320 --> 15:33.560 his company was attacked by tanks and enemy infantry, he ordered his men to withdraw to 15:33.560 --> 15:39.560 prepared positions. But he remained forward to direct artillery fire and to man a machine gun 15:39.560 --> 16:06.920 on a crippled tank destroyer. Later, he made his way to his company, refused medical attention for 16:06.920 --> 16:20.920 leg wound and organized the company in a counterattack. His counterattack pressed 16:20.920 --> 16:28.160 forward in the face of withering enemy fire. His citation read, his indomitable courage and 16:28.160 --> 16:37.160 his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction. 16:37.160 --> 16:46.720 Other brave men rallied to its core and the counterattack was successful. The Germans were 16:46.720 --> 17:13.480 forced to withdraw. He was a major in the Air Corps, lead pilot of a flight of two fighter 17:13.480 --> 17:20.200 planes taking on the task of attacking 13 Japanese planes. Closing on the enemy formation in a 17:20.200 --> 17:26.200 climbing turn, he scored hits on the lead plane. Then diving to 300 feet in pursuit of another 17:26.200 --> 17:32.120 fighter, he caught it with his initial burst. Before the action was over, seven enemy aircraft 17:32.120 --> 17:46.520 would go down under his smoking guns. He was a general of the army who sent a thrill through 17:46.520 --> 17:52.080 the Allied world by returning victorious as he had promised to a land he had been forced to 17:52.080 --> 17:58.840 withdraw from in the face of overwhelming forces. His Medal of Honor cited him for gallantry and 17:58.840 --> 18:06.960 intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against invading Japanese forces and for 18:06.960 --> 18:15.560 conspicuous leadership in preparing the Philippine Islands to resist conquest. He was a flying colonel 18:15.560 --> 18:21.080 who was promoted to brigadier general on the completion of his mission. That mission for which 18:21.080 --> 18:26.880 he volunteered and which would bring him a Medal of Honor began as an experiment which in 1942 18:26.880 --> 18:33.680 seemed incredible to many. An effort to lift a heavy army bomber from the deck of a Navy aircraft 18:33.680 --> 18:41.160 carrier. These planes were destined for Japan and the army then had no suitable airfields close 18:41.160 --> 18:49.240 enough for them to leave. The test was successful. Soon thereafter, from a carrier moving through the 18:49.240 --> 18:55.320 Pacific as close to Japan as possible, army bombers manned by volunteers lurched forward. 18:55.320 --> 19:21.560 In those dark early months of the war, their mission when it became known would electrify 19:21.560 --> 19:28.200 the country with a thrill of hope and pride. They were to carry the war to the enemy, to a confident 19:28.200 --> 19:35.600 Tokyo which then believed itself invulnerable to attack. So audacious was the mission, so daring 19:35.600 --> 19:54.320 in conception and performance, the Japanese defenders were caught by complete surprise. 19:54.320 --> 20:01.080 The attackers came roaring in over the Japanese mainland and the first blood, the first of much 20:01.080 --> 20:07.400 to follow, was drawn from the enemy. 21:01.080 --> 21:12.200 Some of the volunteers on this mission fell into enemy hands, some perished in the sea, 21:12.200 --> 21:18.720 some made it to safety. One who did was the colonel, now a general, who led the mission 21:18.720 --> 21:25.720 and won the Medal of Honor. Not many general officers did win the coveted medal. The soldier 21:25.720 --> 21:31.920 who faces the enemy daily has a greater opportunity to earn it, but the value placed on it by 21:31.920 --> 21:37.640 every rank is that of the most prized of all awards. One general who did not receive it 21:37.640 --> 21:43.000 said years after the war, I would rather have the right to wear this than be president of 21:43.000 --> 21:50.640 the United States. His name was Dwight D. Eisenhower. It's meaningless to talk of the 21:50.640 --> 21:56.800 Medal of Honor in terms of rank. Generals can win it and corporals can win it and cooks 21:56.800 --> 22:03.880 and marines and ordinary seamen and men who fight their battles in the sky. Bravery knows 22:03.880 --> 22:11.240 no rank and it knows no station. The Medal can be and has been won by every kind of man 22:11.240 --> 22:17.760 our society has produced. It can be won in wars of all kinds, as it has been in our time, 22:17.760 --> 22:25.480 from the mighty epic of a war that stretched across the world to one localized on the narrow 22:25.480 --> 22:35.040 peninsula of Korea. In the hills of this divided and far off land, Americans faced communist 22:35.040 --> 22:43.680 guns for the first time. Korea was a war of symbols. It was freedom itself which was attacked 22:43.680 --> 22:50.320 and it was in the cause of freedom that men stood and fought. But behind the symbols, 22:50.320 --> 22:58.080 it was a war of flesh and steel. The fighting was bitter and intense. 131 Americans who 22:58.080 --> 23:05.400 fought here joined the select ranks of the bravest of the brave. Some fell, some lived. 23:05.400 --> 23:11.000 Some understood clearly the contribution to freedom's defense they made. Others perhaps 23:11.000 --> 23:17.800 saw the issue dim. But each of them reached the summit of America's pyramid of honor by 23:17.800 --> 23:47.600 a supreme act of bravery above and beyond the court. 23:47.800 --> 24:17.760 With the Korean armistice, the guns of American 24:17.760 --> 24:27.360 Americans in war were silenced. The last brave deed in combat was recorded. And thus, in 24:27.360 --> 24:33.360 a sense, the story of the Medal of Honor to this day is closed. The heroic adventures 24:33.360 --> 24:40.500 of the 3,156 who have won it in a century of wars are preserved between the bindings 24:40.500 --> 24:46.520 of official history and all are woven into the living legend of a people and a people's 24:46.520 --> 24:55.560 spirit. But for this very reason, the story of the Medal of Honor is not ended and indeed 24:55.560 --> 25:02.480 cannot end. For the particular essence of the Medal is not what it is or even the epic 25:02.480 --> 25:11.280 tales of those who've earned it, but more than anything else, what it represents. That 25:11.280 --> 25:18.360 precious quality which Lincoln called devotion transformed in an atmosphere of danger into 25:18.360 --> 25:30.080 a courage whose presence ennobles man. Such a quality does not die. It lives unflowered 25:30.080 --> 25:41.400 and unseen. But if it's needed, it's there. Once more, America stands in crisis. And as 25:41.400 --> 25:48.360 in other days, searching for the promise of its future, it finds itself looking into the 25:48.360 --> 25:56.200 eyes of its sons. Their defense of freedom is a silent one, but most solidly real. Their 25:56.200 --> 26:03.760 mission urgent in the eyes of mankind demands more of patience and skill of effort and adjustment 26:03.760 --> 26:10.640 and quiet determination than it does of courage. They train so that war with its special call 26:10.640 --> 26:22.480 for bravery will never come. But the seeds of bravery lie there and they will blossom 26:22.480 --> 26:28.840 if they must in fields where they have grown before, where they have always grown, in the 26:28.840 --> 26:40.840 stout hearts of men. The links in the soldiers' tradition are strong ones and the heritage 26:40.840 --> 26:48.800 of those who serve today reaches far. And most prized of all in this heritage is the 26:48.800 --> 26:57.040 tradition of courage, refined into the special quality whose presence is felt here in this 26:57.040 --> 27:23.280 hall of glory, where ghosts of heroes walk, keeping vigil on a nation's pride.