President Biden awarded the nation’s highest recognition for valor in combat, the Medal of Honor, to 4 Vietnam War veterans, saying it was “finally” possible to do so after decades in which their actions were not properly recognized. (via washingtonpost)
The recipients include Spec. 5 Dwight Birdwell, who led an armored unit through a bloody ambush in 1968; Maj. John J. Duffy, a Special Forces officer who fought off an attack in 1972; Spec. 5 Dennis M. Fujii, who,
“It has been a long journey to this day for those heroes and their families, and more than 50 years have passed — 50 years — since the jungles of Vietnam, where as young men these soldiers first proved their mettle,” Biden said. “Time has not diminished their astonishing bravery, their selflessness in putting the lives of others ahead of their own, and the gratitude that we as a nation owe them.”
“He used the tank’s cannon, he used the tank’s machine gun, he used his personal rifle,” Biden said. “He sustained fire, drove back the attackers, and created a place of relative safety for injured men behind the tank to take cover.”Birdwell was hit by shrapnel but kept fighting. Eventually, he was ordered to board a helicopter to evacuate, but he crawled out the opposite side of the aircraft and went back to fighting.
Duffy retired from the Army in 1977 and was later nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for poetry — the “definition of a warrior poet,” Biden said. The fourth Medal of Honor recognized Kaneshiro, who was raised in Hawaii by parents who were Japanese immigrants, Biden said.
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