Thirty years ago this autumn, one issue of The Saturday Evening Post particularly caught my eye. On the 23 October 1965 cover was a painting that could have graced an Army recruiting poster. The closeup showed Green Beret Captain Roger Donlon, the first man to receive the Medal of Honor since the Korean War. Even now, I can recall my thought processes: if the fighting was such that someone has earned a Medal of Honor, this business in Vietnam must be serious. A year later, I was in Vietnam myself. It was indeed serious.
A few weeks ago, it was my considerable privilege to attend a dinner in Philadelphia. The principal guests were the members of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. As we mingled beforehand, I found myself face to face with a personable man. He was Colonel Roger Donlon, U.S. Army (Retired); the cover painting had come to life. He is 30 years older, has longer hair than his Army crewcut, and is more solidly built than the gaunt young officer of the 1960s. That Donlon was in Philadelphia at all—let alone quite healthy—was near-miraculous in view of the experiences he had in 1964 when he was wounded several times while rescuing men of his outfit amidst a hail of small arms fire, automatic weapons, mortars, and grenades.
During our time together, we made small talk about such things as sending kids off to college, the study of history, and an interesting riverboat museum in Kansas City, not far from Donlon’s current home. As we talked, I was conscious of the Medal of Honor just below his necktie. That star-shaped medal, suspended from a blue ribbon with white stars, distinguishes him from almost all living Americans. Of the more than 3,400 medals that have been awarded, only about 180 of the recipients are still alive. Some 70% of the awards were made posthumously, and many in the remaining 30% have died since receiving their medals.
Another man with whom I talked was Jim Fleming, who in November 1968 earned his medal as an Air Force lieutenant in Vietnam. As I discussed the oral history interviews I had conducted with Navy men, he said that the Air Force had done his oral history some years ago. The interviewer got Fleming to talk to such an extent that he felt as if he were making a confession to a priest, he said. He later decided he had said too much, so he destroyed both the tapes and transcripts—a step he now regrets.
The sea services were well represented; these men were honored for a variety of wartime achievements. Marine aviators Bob Galer and Joe Foss flew the unfriendly skies over Guadalcanal in 1942, while machine gunner Mitchell Paige was on the ground below. Gene Fluckey was aggressive as a submarine skipper in World War II. Tom Hudner tried valiantly to save a fellow aviator in Korea. Jim Stockdale was a defiant prisoner of war in Vietnam; in the same war Tom Norris rescued two downed pilots while serving as a SEAL team adviser.
All told, more than 100 of these extraordinary men were gathered for their biennial meeting. The dinner was sponsored by the Union League of Philadelphia, an organization formed in 1862 to provide support for the Union forces in the Civil War then in progress. In the midst of urban Philadelphia, the headquarters building is a period piece.
Solidly built, paneled in dark wood, its corridors are decorated with paintings of stern-looking Civil War generals, plus the rare Navy man, Rear Admiral Andrew Foote. Tradition is manifest everywhere, broken only slightly in recent years to the extent of allowing women members of the Union League and—believe it or not—the occasional playing of the southern anthem “Dixie.”
The after-dinner remarks by the league’s president, Robert W. Miller, were eloquent and heartfelt. During his talk, he was careful to use the word “recipient.” For a long time I followed the customary practice of referring to “Medal of Honor winners.” Several years ago, though, I went to Florida to interview Captain David McCampbell, the Navy’s top fighter ace of World War II. Politely but firmly he told me that he and his cohorts dislike the term “winner,” because it implies some sort of heroism lottery game. Thus, he said, these men should be described as “awardees” or “recipients” in order to avoid demeaning their achievements.
Along with the speeches were musical numbers by the Union League’s glee club. One at a time, each service was honored: “The Caissons Go Rolling Along,” “The Marine Hymn,” “Anchors Aweigh,” and “Up We Go into the Wild Blue Yonder.” With each number, the medal recipients from that service stood and sang. The Marines were the most vocal; the Air Force men were the most scarce. The Medal of Honor is largely an infantrymen’s award. After the service anthems, the large meeting room was filled with a palpable air of patriotism during the singing of such songs as “America the Beautiful,” “God Bless America,” and the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Standing among these men, one couldn’t remain unmoved while hearing the Civil War lyrics, “. . . as He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. . . .”
Those words were reinforced that evening as the society welcomed two new members to the “Medal of Honor family.” The newcomers are widows of men who were killed in Somalia and posthumously recognized for their heroism. By its very nature, the medal goes to those who accomplished things at great risk to their lives. Among those at the dinner was retired Colonel Harvey “Barney” Bamum, another man who had received his Medal of Honor for heroism in Vietnam. An enthusiastic, good-humored Marine, Barnum turned serious when he said that the ranks of the Medal of Honor Society are being steadily depleted, particularly as members of the World War II generation come to the end of their lives. Bamum said that his strong hope is that the organization will in time disappear completely—that there will be no more wars to replenish its dwindling ranks.