Delayed but not denied: Medals of Honor awarded decades after heroic acts in Korea and Vietnam

WASHINGTON — One soldier from North Carolina, shielding a wounded comrade he'd pulled from a downed helicopter in Vietnam, suffered 20 bullet wounds and died saving him. Another U.S. soldier from Los Angeles, whose government imprisoned him during World War II for being of Japanese descent, found himself alone on a battlefield in Korea with his rifle and bayonet. He rushed a machine-gun nest, destroyed it, and kept fighting until a grenade blast killed him.

Those soldiers, and five others, are scheduled to be honored Friday by President Joe Biden at a White House ceremony. Biden will award Medals of Honor decades after the soldiers' acts of valor and self-sacrifice in Korea and Vietnam.

Medals of Honor, the nation’s highest award for battlefield heroism, require extensive documentation and often years of advocacy by family members, comrades and members of Congress. The narratives that accompany the medals depict young men repeatedly exposing themselves to lethal gunfire and blasts, and, in the Army’s words, distinguishing themselves “by acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty.”

The delayed recognition, in the cases of some of the soldiers of color from the Korean War, could be due to racial discrimination at the time, said Dwight Mears, an Army combat veteran, former professor at West Point and expert on military commendations. Efforts in the 1990s to review such awards focused solely on those issued during World War II, Mears said.

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"This is partly a product of the failure to conduct comprehensive reviews of awards tainted by discrimination," Mears said.

An Army official agreed, saying the effort to honor the men reflects an attempt to right wrongs of the past. The same thread has run through efforts in recent years to change the name of military bases that previously honored Confederate War heroes, and to review medals awarded to soldiers who may have been involved in killing non-combatants in the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, according to the official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

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It's no coincidence that some of the recipients are Black and Japanese-American. The records of all the seven soldiers honored speak for them and qualify them for the honor, the official said.

Private 1^st Class Kenneth David was serving as a radio telephone operator in central Vietnam enemy troops launched an intense surprise attack on his outpost on May 7, 1970, according to an Army narrative of his actions.  His company commander mortally wounded, David, from Girard, Ohio, handed his radio to his platoon sergeant and started fighting. He yelled to draw fire toward him and away from the wounded.

David, wounded by an explosion and running low ammunition, lobbed hand grenades at the attackers and refused medical care. He kept fighting, drawing fire away from medevac helicopters, until the battle was over.

"We got overrun. It was pitch black at night," David recalled to reporters. He helped save seven soldiers, while another seven were killed in the attack, David said.

"I give thanks to my foxhole buddies and honor the memory of the seven buddies that gave their all," David said. Their names are now on the same panel of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., he said.

Private Bruno Orig, from Honolulu, Hawaii, saw several fellow soldiers wounded by a fierce attack on Feb. 15, 1951 near Chipyong-ni, Korea.

Exposed to enemy fire, Orig administered first aid and helped evacuate the wounded to safety. Noticing that all but one member of a machine-gun crew had been wounded, Orig volunteered to fire the weapon.

Orig’s actions allowed a platoon to withdraw without a single casualty and he continued firing on the enemy before being overrun. Orig was found dead beside his weapon, and the area in front of his gun was littered with several dead enemy soldiers, according to the Army.

His sister Loretta Orig told reporters that she was grateful that her brother was being “recognized for what he did in the war.”

Private First Class Wataru Nakamura, from Los Angeles had volunteered to check a communication line between his platoon and command outpost the morning of May 18, 1951 near P’ungh’on-ni in Korea. He came under fire by enemy troops that had surrounded them. Without waiting for help, Nakamura rushed a machine-gun nest with his bayonet, “singlehandedly" destroyed it and went on to clear other bunkers, according to the Army.

He withdrew under fire after running out of ammunition. He returned to clear other bunkers and was mortally wounded by a grenade blast.

Gary Takashima, Nakamura’s nephew, recalled that during World War II the government had detained his uncle at a camp in Arkansas. Nakamura enlisted in the Army as soon as he could, “like many Japanese American men at the time, to show his loyalty and sense of duty to his country,” Takashima said.

Nakamura fought in World War II and was called back to duty for the Korean War, Takashima said.

“He lost his life volunteering for an assignment, helping out his unit,” Takashima said. “My uncle had a strong commitment to his service and to his fellow soldiers.”

On June 16, 1952, Corporal Fred McGee’s unit assaulted fortified enemy positions near Tang-Wan-Ni Korea. McGee, from Steubenville, Ohio, fired his light machine gun while exposed to enemy mortar and gunfire. He took command of his squad after his leader was wounded.

McGee ordered his soldiers to withdraw while he stayed behind to evacuate the wounded and dead. Wounded in the face himself, he moved another man through “a huge volume of enemy mortar and artillery fire,” according to the Army.

Victoria Secrest, McGee’s daughter, said she’d petitioned presidents, members of Congress and the Army for more than three decades to have her father’s heroism recognized. Her father died in 2020.

“The odds are against you, and I started to look like the crazy lady with the clipboard everywhere I went,” she said. “And then with the computer, the laptop everywhere I went. And then with the iPad everywhere I went.”

Private First Class Charles Johnson of Sharon Connecticut, faced “overwhelming odds” while defending Outpost Harry in Korea during a fierce battle June 11 and 12, 1953.

Chinese troops had launched a massive nighttime assault on the outpost. Johnson, wounded when artillery fire struck his bunker and a hand grenade explosion, provided first aid to more seriously wounded soldiers. While dragging a wounded comrade to shelter, he killed several enemy troops in hand-to-hand combat.

He then collected weapons and ammunition and returned to his bunker. No longer able to hold the position, Johnson told his comrades he would cover their withdrawal and hold out as long as he could. Sacrificing his own life, Johnson saved as many as 10 others, according to the Army, noting his “unyielding courage and bravery.”

An accomplished athlete and musician, Johnson had safer options to choose from in the Army, his nephew, Trey Mendez said.

“He could have applied for different roles in the military, but he said, ‘No. If other people are going to the front, I need to go to the front,’” Mendez said.

On the night of June 14, 1953 near Sagimak Korea, 1^st Lt. Richard Cavazos from Kingsville, Texas, led a raid through “intense mortar and artillery fire” on an entrenched enemy outpost, according to the Army. Cavazos and his soldiers destroyed the base and withdrew under a heavy counterattack.

Cavazos led two more assaults under heavy fire, remaining alone at the outpost to search for missing comrades. He found five wounded men and evacuated them, one by one, while being shot at. He returned to the battlefield, unassisted, to search for more missing men. He didn’t accept medical treatment until he was satisfied the battlefield had been cleared.

“He was a man of deep faith who loved his country, loved his family, loved his soldiers,” his son, Tommy Cavazos told reporters.

Cavazos went on to become the Army's first Hispanic brigadier general in 1976. He was promoted to four-star general in 1982. Fort Cavazos, in his home state, bears his name.

Near Moc Hoa, in South Vietnam on June 5, 1966, Captain Hugh Nelson, a graduate of The Citadel in South Carolina, commanded a helicopter on a search-and-destroy mission when enemy fire rendered his aircraft uncontrollable. Nelson crash landed it and pulled wounded crew members from the wreckage.

While Nelson tried to free a trapped door gunner, insurgents fired on the helicopter from 30 feet away. He pushed the man to the ground and used his body to shield him from “intense enemy fire,” according to the army. Nelson saved the man who then used a smoke grenade that aided the survivors’ rescue.

Debbie McKnight remembered the two-minute-16-second call from President Biden. "I remember sitting down when he called because my knees had started shaking," she told reporters.

For McKnight, the call brought back the emotional memory of telling her father not to go to war because she was afraid she would never see him again when she was five years old. Six months later, the family learned he was killed.

“Our father laid on top of the second soldier that he removed and used his body as a barrier and a shield,” said Hugh Nelson III, McKnight’s brother. He was hit with more than 20 rounds of fire, Nelson said. But his sacrifice allowed his three fellow soldiers to escape with their lives.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Medals of Honor awarded decades after acts of heroism in Korea and Vietnam.