Medal of Honor Society convention in Gettysburg
Bill reminds us that about half of the living recipients of our nation’s highest award, the Medal of Honor, are gathered for their annual convention in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania this weekend. The Associated Press writes;
The recipients’ autographs sometimes end up on public auction sites, but Loether said he collects them as a hobby that began as a way to honor his sons in the military.
Recipients sat at tables ringing a hotel ballroom, including Clinton L. Romesha of Minot, N.D. President Barack Obama presented him with the honor in February for bravery in defending an Army outpost in Afghanistan four years ago.
Now working in safety for a construction company, Romesha, 32, said he tries to remind himself that he’s still the same person he was before, a man who has to take out the trash himself.
“I never thought in a million years I’d ever meet a recipient, let alone be one,” said Romesha, who was attending his first convention.
Category: Politics
I met a couple of MoH winners in person during my career; one was Gary Littrell, who served as an ARVN Ranger advisor in Kontum, RVN, when he earned his in 1970, and was buddies in Vietnam with my CSM, who introduced him to me after a military function. The other was Robert Patterson, who earned his while assigned to 2-17 Cav, 101st ABN DIV, in in RVN I corps in 1968. I ran into him when he was the newly-assigned battalion CSM of a line battalion at Schofield Barracks in ’81 or ’82. Quite an honor to meet both of these MoH awardees.
I was just getting ready to write a post on this!….Great(ful) minds think alike!!
I met Mitchell Paige at a mess night when I was going through the Advanced SNCO course in 1997. He actually passed his medal around while he was making his speech to us.
Combat Historian — great post but THEY AREN’T WINNERS — they didn’t enter a contest — they are recipients. Sorry — pet peave!! Wrote CBS about the same thing earlier this morning.
@4: Please note that I did catch myself at the end of my post and used the term “MoH awardees” at the end of the paragraph instead of “MoH winners”. I did forget to correct the “MoH winners” at the beginning of the paragraph, though…
Oh man. I had no idea. It makes me sick to think I could have spent yesterday in the same room with these men. On the other hand, I probably would have gotten jello legs and started sweating and all of that. The city site is different each year so maybe I’ll get over there tomorrow for a look-see at some MOH license plates.
I met Mike Thornton a couple of years ago – he was the featured speaker at an awards luncheon I attended. Three members of my unit and I had a photo taken with him afterward. What an experience!