Show americas medal of honor for bravery ft 5 bestowed for extraordinary valor and the officer must work harder for the bit of ribbon and bronze than the enlisted man similar foreign honors come easier camy TAW HE congressional medal of honor recognizes no rank it Is awarded to the private or the general the second class seaman or fertman or to tho rear admiral for extraordinary courage valor surpass I 1 ing even that which Is expected from the w ell trained seasoned soldier or sailor IMO matter how hazardous a duty well performed that Is not enough to win the medal something more than Is demanded by duty must be achieved unlike some of the european decorations tor bravery the american medal of honor Is more difficult for an officer to win than for an enlisted man because more Is expected of an officer the medal Is a bit of bronze suspended from a gibbon its intrinsic value be it what it may Is of no importance into the metal disk are welded tall the qualities of man which men admire even worship in the archles of the war department are succinct unimaginative records of the acts which caused the medal to be pinned to tte breasts of the men who have won it the papers will yellow and crumble the ribbons will rot to dust the bronze itself will corrode and vanish but the things the medal stands for will go on and the epic of the medal of honor will continue to be inscribed in the hearts of men there Is no doubt the medal of honor will be ft on in this war but it will not be won easily and though millions may be fighting under the american flag it will come to but few to wear this distinguishing mark in the spanish war less than 20 medals were awarded in the philippines a few were given the last two medals to be awarded were presented to sergt maj roswall and cor joseph A glowan of the marine corps for their work at the battle of aguaya guaya canes in santo domingo it Is the act itself which wins the medal for a man and not only does his rank matter not at all but be may win it in a skirmish or in a battle like that of gettysburg or of the marne the report of the board of investigation for the navy department in their case follows on july 3 the twenty eighth company of mir rines was engaged with the dominican armed forces at the battle of guayacanes es during a running fight of 1200 yards our forces reached the enemy in and corporal doseph glowan placed the machine gun of which he had charge behind n large log across the road and immediately opened fire on the trenches he was struck once but continued firing his gun but a moment later he was again struck and had to be dragged out of the position into cover sergt roswall TJ S M C then arrived with a colts gun which tie placed in a most exposed position and coolly opened alre on the trenches and when the gun jammed he stood up and repaired it under fire all the time glowan and were handling their guns they were exposed to a very heavy fire which was striking into the logs and around the men seven men being wounded and one killed within 20 feet sergeant continued firing his gun until the enemy had abandoned the trenches sergeant story in his own words Is even more modest than the official report al though it Is more and picturesque on the morning of july 3 he said we got under way with every one feeling like a new man firing on the advance guard began early in the day our captain obtained permission to take our platoon forward we kept the guns on the carriages until within a few yards of the fir ing line then transferred them to the tripods and immediately opened alre the enemy was using mostly old fashioned breechloaders breech loaders with big lead slugs the brush was very thick on both aldes of the road jams were frequent with us and each gun wore out a couple of shell extractors culty had been experienced all along with our ammunition some of it dated back as far as 1907 it had evidently been reloaded many times we found it good policy to change barrels in case of n jam in the chambers enthat way we would be only a out of action A party of the enemy w erea seen up the road and corporal holmson started to put his gun in action A big lead slag tin cans e called them came ricocheting down the arpad directly for us john eon saw it behind his gun he ducked almost prone but the thing skip and hit him in the jaw pissed down and lodged back of the shoulder the gun crews promptly gave the place where the acho t was flotd a good combing we continued to advance under cover of the bushes and trees A battalion of infantry was deployed as mashers on each side of the road and we were concealed by n turn bif the road and high trees and bushes directly the road was a huge log at our end of the log a benet had just commenced roaring with corporal glowing la command of it the captain ordered a gun in action at the butt of tho tree it had no sooner opened up than all the bullets iu the world seemed coming 4 our way the enemy was shooting mighty close too the trenches were awfully hard to pick up although we were only about yards away they were on a hill and had carried their dirt away the baft allons made slow progress on the flanks on account of the thick underbrush the enemy had an immensely strong natural position and had they had a few machine guns and some barbed wire they could not have beep rooted out without great loss of life A call went up for a hospital apprentice as corporal frazee had been shot in the head lie had been working hard getting hla gun pointed on the and had just succeeded you are right on them now give them fits I 1 were the last words he said nis pointer was also shot in the head and two others were wounded in the arm A corporal in the thirteenth company was shot twice while operating a benet herder lie refused to leave his gun and had to be carried away struggling to get back into the fight W alle this w as going on our other guns began to come up one at fl time and we obtained superiority over the enemy who shot very wildly from now on tills last Is an after judg ment at the time they seemed to be just missing me I 1 don t know how the other men felt but I 1 expected to be shot any minute and just wanted to do as much damage as possible to the enemy before cashing in several members of our platoon did cool and creditable work in chang ang cartridge extractors and repairing jams under fire we faced the enemy as much as possible while repairing the guns as we had a horror of being shot in the back one of the sweetest sounds I 1 ever heard was the cheering of the infantry battalion as it charged the right flank trenches of the enemy gunnery sergeant ralph was among the first of these lie had a pistol fight with the rebel general in corn mand ralph and some other man with a rifle hit him at about the same time result exit general we moved up t the trenches after the battle and reformed getting our equipment together corporal frazee died soon after being hit and was buried within a few feet of the place where he had fought so well the enemy lost very heavily and if santo domingo was not an island some of those birds would be running yet maj gen J franklin bell now in command of the eastern department with headquarters on governors island won the medal in the philippines As colonel of the thirty sixth infantry he was proceeding along the san antonio road to head off a band of insurgents wha had attacked the ninth infantry at guagua and santa rita colonel bell mounted was riding near the head of the advance party and had with him col william R grove major straub two mounted orderlies and about twelve scouts on foot just at dawn the party was fired upon from what seemed a fairly large body of insurgents hidden in the brush the american fire dislodged the enemy about seven of them running down the road around a bend the scouts pursued them but colonel bell saw at once that the men with their heavy equipment were being easily danced by the lightly clad and he dashed after them on hi horse before major straub or the two mounted orderlies knew what he was doing colonel bell waa far down the road in the midst of seven struggling insurgents firing with his revolver and slashing about with his saber the mounted men galloped to his assistance and the infantry supported him aa best they could with rifle fire although it was almost impossible to shoot so tangled up were the insurgents and bell the officer would have been perfectly justified in remaining with his troops even behind them and merely directing th dislodging assault and for charging alone and driving into the jungle at least seven with two officers among them the medal of honor was awarded to him two of the few medals awarded in the war against spain went to ft second class fireman and a coppersmith on board the battleship iowa while the vessel was cruising in cuban waters july 20 osos at about seven 0 clock in the morning a manhole gasket blew out in one of the ballera in fire room no 2 under pound pressure live steam roared out into the room and boiling water slashed swashed around the floor in the adjoining compartment were robert penn second class fireman and P B keefer a coppersmith hearing the wild roar of the es capling attain they dashed to the door of fire room no 2 the men who bad been working there blinded by the escaping steam floundering in the scalding water had been so overcome that they could not get out one of the coil passers bad alady sunk to his knees and was dropping forward in a matter of seconds he would has toppled into the and been boiled to death undaunted by the terrifying roar of the steam it 3 alf f and the killing heat penn dashed into the room and lifting the coal passer to safety with him the scalding water above his neues ignoring the frightful pain of his scalded swollen feet this second class fireman dashed back into the hell from which he had just dragged one victim and saved another life keefer meanwhile was busy saving the ship from destruction or at least fram the effects of a terrific explosion for the water escaping from the boiler would soon leave so little there that it would be entirely converted into steam and the pressure would wreck it dashing through the blinding torturing steam keefer the coppersmith hauled the fires from under the two inboard furnaces meanwhile penn having gotten every one out of the fire room had turned on the extra feed pump in the after fire hold to keep water in the boilers and built h bridge to the furnaces out 0 planks laid on top of ash buckets while passed assistant engineer shockney Stoc kney held the plank in place penn hauled the two remaining fires before jie was carried to the sick bay where his terribly scalded feet were treated both penn and keefer received the medal of for their acts that it Is only extraordinary bravery which merits the medal accounts for the fact that fireman smith did not win the bronze for the same days work in helping keefer he had both legs badly burned but the opportunity did not offer itself to display the same super courage which keefer and penn exhibited some of the most stirring medal stories are those of the indian campaigns for instance there ans corporal paul II 11 Wel nert who expected to be court mart tor what he did nt the battle of wounded knee but instead had the medal of lionor pinned to his breast another indian fighter to win the coveted bronze was sergt bernard taylor of the fifth cavalry engaged in fighting the apaches in arl zona in 1874 some of the most distinguished men in the army have worn the medal aleut gen nelson A miles won it for continually exposing himself to the fire of the enemy as colonel of the sixty first new york volunteers in the civil war tor no other purpose than to encourage his men by the example at fair oaks gen william R shatter was wounded but when a surgeon was seen approach ing he climbed a tree in order not to be sent to the rear after the surgeon passed shatter came down and continued to fight ati he fell unconscious from loss of blood those who remember general shatter only as he was in the cuban campaign will wonder how he got into the tree but a man can put on a apt of weight in thirty odd years gen francis D baldwin won the medal while a first lieutenant in the fifth infantry with two companies under him he rescued two white girls from indians at ennana creek tex in november 1874 although not so well known as the victoria cross the iron cross or the Mcd atlle the congressional medal of lionor Is much more difficult to attain it Is distributed to very few persons and then only after a sweeping alon of the circumstances surrounding the act for which it Is recommended the medal of honor was authorized by con gross by an act of july 12 1802 the striking of 2000 medals waa ordered to be conferred upon privates and non commissioned officers for nets of bravery surpassing those usually demanded of soldiers one thousand of these medals were zotos to a single organization the sun ivors of n maine regiment which volunteered to remain in service on the eve of the battle of gettysburg although their terms had expired this Is the only case of a wholesale distribution of the medal and has been severely criticized there are slight variations in the medals as designed for the the navy and the marines the ardys medal as modified in 1905 Is a five pointed aktar with the trefoils tre foils on the tips the bair is superimposed on a wreath in the center of the benr I 1 the head of minerva bv the words united states of america the medal is suspended from a trophy representing nn eagle on a ar with the word valor the whole Is suspended from n ribbon the original medal bora in the center of the star a figure of america clad as minerva her left hand rested upon the fasces and with a shield in glicr right she repelled discord A band of stars circled the figures the trophy was an eagle perched on two crossed cannons and a number 0 cainnon balla suspended from a red white and blue ribbon the medal aa presented to the marines today is practically like the original medal except that it moaned to th ribbon by n anchor and the rib bon Is w orn around alic neck the nivy receives n medil similar to that awarded to but worn pinned to the breast suspended from a bar by a short ribbon the medal Is worn only on special p brode or erem onles alth ta s uniform new york t LA j A a |