2 Awarded Posthumous Medal of Honor

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Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 3:51 PM

Subject: [vetissues] 2 Awarded Posthumous Medal of Honor

(EXCERPT) Wed May 1, 4:08 PM ET, by SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press

Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Decades after they died in battle, President Bush (news - web sites) conferred on Jon E. Swanson and Ben L. Salomon the nation's highest military commendation, the Medal of Honor.

"The United States acknowledges a debt that time has not diminished," the president said Wednesday.

In an emotional ceremony in the Rose Garden, Bush stood with Swanson's widow, who lives in Boulder, Colo., and two daughters, and with the man who prodded the government to grant Salomon the award.

Swanson, in his second tour of duty, was flying a helicopter over Cambodia on Feb. 26, 1971, pinpointing and bombing enemy positions, when his plane came under heavy enemy fire.

He ran out of heavy ordnance and began dropping smoke grenades to alert other American warplanes to enemy positions, Bush said. He made it back to safety with his helicopter heavily damaged, and volunteered to return to the scene to continue marking targets, Bush said.

"Had he stayed on the ground, no one would have faulted him," the president said. "But he had seen that more targets needed marking to eliminate the danger to the troops on the ground."

Swanson flew directly into enemy fire until his helicopter exploded in flight, Bush said.

Swanson was initially awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, but a recent review made plain he deserved the Medal of Honor, Bush said.

"The Medal of Honor recognizes acts of bravery that no superior could rightly order a soldier to perform," Bush said. "The courage it signifies — gallant, intrepid service at the risk of life, above and beyond the call of duty — is written forever in the service record of Army Captain John Swanson."

Salomon, a medic with the 107th Infantry Division during World War II, sacrificed himself to save patients when 5,000 Japanese troops launched a charge during the Battle of Saipan on July 7, 1944. He was in a tent station when the enemy troops attacked and he ordered enlisted medics to evacuate the wounded to a rear area.

The two machine gunners assigned to defend his aid station were killed, so Salomon told his medics he would man a machine gun. The patients and medics all made it out safely, but Salomon was found dead at his post the next day, gun at his side.

"Captain Salomon single-handedly killed 98 enemy soldiers, saving many American lives but sacrificing his own," Bush said. "As best the Army could tell, he was shot 24 times before he fell, more than 50 times after that."

Robert West, a World War II veteran and dentist from Calabasas, Calif., pursued the honors on Salomon's behalf and received the award for him. He learned of Salomon's heroics in 1995 while researching notable alumni for the University of Southern California's centennial celebration. Salomon was a 1937 graduate of the university's dental school.

"For a long time I didn't think this was going to happen," said West.

"But it has been a labor of love."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020501/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_medal_of_honor_3

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Otis Willie
Associate Librarian
The American War Library

http://www.americanwarlibrary.com