by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
Hershel W. Williams
Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps, 21st Marines, 3rd Marine Division
The first time the five foot six, nineteen- year-old Hershel “Woody” Williams tried to join the Marines, in the fall of 1942, he was too short. The second time he tried, a few months later, he wasn’t: The Corps relaxed its height requirements. He immediately enlisted. He was sent to the Pacific with the 3rd Marine Division and placed in a flamethrower/demolition unit.
Williams took part in the invasion of Guam, which seemed horrific—until he was sent to Iwo Jima the following year. The beach area in Guam was clear and relatively undefended, and the Marines could advance into the jungle. At Iwo, all the jungle cover had been blown away, and the beach became a slaughterhouse. CONTINUED >>
Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
Paul J. Wiedorfer
Private, U.S. Army Company G, 318th Infantry, 80th Infantry Division
Working in the war industries gave Paul Wiedorfer an automatic deferment until 1943, when he was drafted. The following year, he was in Europe with the 80th Infantry. After fighting through France and into Belgium, his battalion was taken out of combat and put on “corps reserve.” But the rest wasn’t for long—when the Battle of the Bulge began, his unit was loaded onto trucks and sent to the front. They were on the way to relieve the garrison at Bastogne when American troops, mistaking them for Germans, opened fire on them. Wiedorfer’s commanding officer had to drape their vehicles with white sheets to convince the Americans to cease firing. CONTINUED >>
Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
Gary G. Wetzel
Private First Class, U.S. Army 173rd Assault Helicopter Company, 11th Combined Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Brigade
Gary Wetzel grew up as the second oldest of nine children and joined the Army at the age of eighteen. It was only one month after his nineteenth birthday when he landed in Saigon. With aspirations of being a pilot, he reenlisted to be guaranteed the duty station of his choice. Assigned to the 173rd Assault Helicopter Company, the Robin Hoods, Wetzel served as a door gunner. About ten days before he was scheduled to return home after serving two tours, he was shot down for the fifth time on January 8, 1968. CONTINUED >>
Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
Ernest E. West
Private First Class, U.S. Army 2nd Squad, 3rd Platoon, Company L, 3rd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division
Private First Class Ernest West did his basic training as part of the 25th Infantry in Hawaii—a “paradise” in comparison to what he would experience in Korea, which he regarded as a frozen hell in the winter and a suffocating hell in the summertime. For a Kentucky boy who had dropped out of high school to take a job on the railroad before being drafted in 1950, Korea was simply the most unfriendly environment he could imagine.
In the fall of 1952, West’s unit was near Sataeri. It was a hilly area, and after dark the U.S. soldiers were monitoring Chinese troops with primitive night vision equipment. The Americans were struck by how tall the enemy troops were—six-footers from northern China and Mongolia, who were dug into bunkers along a high ridgeline. CONTINUED >>
Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
George E. Wahlen
Pharmacist's Mate Second Class, U.S. Navy 2nd Battalion, 26th Marines, 5th Marine Division
George Wahlen started his Navy service with his own version of Catch-22: Having volunteered in 1943 in hopes of becoming an aircraft mechanic, he was selected for medical corpsman training instead. When he protested, his commanding officer hinted that if he did well in his medical training, he might yet realize his ambition to work on planes. So he worked hard and finished near the top of his group—but when he again brought up the possibility of becoming a mechanic, he was told that the Navy couldn’t afford to lose its best corpsman. He was attached to a Marine battalion as a pharmacist’s mate second class. CONTINUED >>
Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
Jay R. Vargas
Captain, U.S. Marine Corps Company G, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade
The son of immigrants—an Italian mother and Hispanic father—Jay Vargas had two older brothers who fought at Iwo Jima and Okinawa in World War II, and a third who fought in Korea. Vargas himself got as far as the Class A Portland team in the Los Angeles Dodgers farm system in the early 1960s before he realized he probably wouldn’t make it as a big-league baseball player. He decided to play for the Marines instead.
By 1968, Captain Vargas was in command of Company G of the Fourth Marines in Vietnam. On April 29, his unit, positioned along the demilitarized zone separating North and South Vietnam, was the last American element in the area. It was supposed to be lifted out, but when the helicopters came under heavy fire, Vargas’s men had to march to base camp during the night. Along the way, hundreds of enemy artillery rounds burst around them, but the impact of the shells and the spray of shrapnel were partially absorbed by the soft muddy soil of the rice paddies, and everyone made it back to base without serious injury. CONTINUED >>
Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
Leo K. Thorsness
Major, U.S. Air Force 357th Tactical Fighter Squadron
Leo Thorsness enlisted in the Air Force in 1952 at the age of nineteen, largely because he had a brother serving in Korea. Though he didn’t make it to Korea himself, he stayed in the military, becoming an officer and a fighter pilot. In 1966, he went to Vietnam as part of a squadron of F-105s. The “Wild Weasel” was a specially modified two-seat F-105 and had the job of finding and destroying surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites. The Weasels were capable of lingering in target areas longer than other fighters, and as a result suffered a high loss ratio; not many Weasel pilots completed their hundred-mission tours. CONTINUED >>
Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
Michael E. Thornton
Petty Officer, U.S. Navy, Navy Advisory Group
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Although he came from the landlocked hills of South Carolina, the idea of being in the Navy seized Michael Thornton’s boyhood imagination when he saw movies such as The Fighting Sullivan Brothers and Frogmen. He enlisted in the Navy shortly after graduating from high school, went through Underwater Demolition Recruit Training, and became a member of the elite SEALs.
In the fall of 1972, with the U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia winding down, there were only three officers and nine enlisted SEALs left in Vietnam. Thornton was one. Their primary missions were rescuing downed American airmen and doing “sneak and peek” reconnaissance on the North Vietnamese Army’s inexorable advance into the south. CONTINUED >>
Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
Brian M. Thacker
First Lieutenant, U.S. Army Battery A, 1st Battalion, 92nd Artillery
Son of a career Air Force officer, Brian Thacker graduated from Utah’s Weber State College and was commissioned in the Army through the ROTC program. After a tour in Germany, where he was “allowed to make a lot of second lieutenant mistakes,” he was sent to Vietnam in the fall of 1970, serving with the 1st Battalion, 92nd Artillery.
He was first assigned to a battery of guns that provided support for combat engineer operations. Then, in the spring of 1971, he took charge of a six-man observation team organized by the battalion. Along with an interpreter, the team was ordered to a hilltop in Kontum Province called Fire Base 6. There they supported South Vietnamese (ARVN) artillery in firing down on North Vietnamese units operating in the valley below. CONTINUED >>
