On this Memorial Day in 1948, a soldier is honored in a ceremony led by none other than General Omar Bradley. Edward G. Wilkin’s young son had received a Medal of Honor on his behalf two years earlier. Now he was also present as Wilkin’s remains were finally brought home. The younger Wilkin remembers the ceremony, “but what it really meant, what it represented,” he admitted. “I never really understood it until I got older of course.” He also remembers Bradley, who spoke t

On this day in 1945, a Seventh-Day Adventist engages in an action that would earn him the Medal of Honor. He was the only conscientious objector to receive a Medal of Honor for his service during World War II. Doss, of course, objected to the term “conscientious objector,” right from the beginning. He preferred “conscientious cooperator” or “noncombatant.” After all, he intended to help the Army in any way that his religion allowed. He worked to get himself assigned as a me

On this day in 1943, a Marine receives the Medal of Honor. Joseph J. Foss is perhaps best known as the first “Ace of Aces” in World War II. He earned his Medal over the skies of Guadalcanal. Foss has been called “one of the mentally toughest aviators in the South Pacific.” That steely determination served him well, long before he became a Marine. In fact, he might never have been a Marine at all, but for his willingness to persevere and work hard. Foss was born to impove

On this day in 1945, a telephone wireman receives the Medal of Honor. Robert D. Maxwell was lucky just to be alive. Months earlier, near Besançon, France, he’d made a split-second decision, putting his own life on the line but saving the men around him. But Maxwell did more than survive. He lived so long that he was the oldest living Medal of Honor recipient at the time of his passing in May 2019. Perhaps Maxwell was an unlikely hero? His Quaker grandfather had been a hug