soldier first in war to get Medal of Honor Paul Smith was killed defending outnumbered unit
The New York Times Published on: 03/30/05 WASHINGTON - Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, killed nearly two years ago defending his vastly outnumbered Army unit in a battle with elite Iraqi troops for control of Baghdad's airport, will receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award, administration officials said Tuesday. No soldier who served in Afghanistan or Iraq after the Sept. 11 attacks has received the medal. The last conflict to produce a Medal of Honor recipient was in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993; two soldiers were awarded the medal posthumously for actions there later depicted in the movie "Black Hawk Down." <http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/0305/42486442_smith.html> Family photo/NYT (ENLARGE) <http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/0305/42486442_smith.html> President Bush will present the award to Smith's widow and children at a White House ceremony. <http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/0305/30medalofhonor.html> EMAIL THIS <http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/0305/30medalofhonor.html> PRINT THIS <http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/0305/30medalofhonor.html> MOST POPULAR Smith, 33, led a defense of a compound next to the airport against a much larger force of Special Republican Guard troops, manning a heavy machine gun, repeatedly firing and reloading three times before he was mortally wounded. Fellow soldiers said his actions killed 20 to 50 Iraqis, allowed wounded American soldiers to be evacuated and saved an aid station and perhaps 100 lives. Smith's "extraordinary heroism and uncommon valor without regard to his own life in order to save others are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service," a draft of the medal citation says. President Bush will present the award to Smith's widow and children at a White House ceremony on Monday, the second anniversary of the airport battle and the soldier's death. The story of Paul Ray Smith is that of an ordinary recruit from Tampa, Fla., who fresh out of high school joined the Army not out of patriotism but for a steady- job, and who 15 years later, as a battle-hardened platoon sergeant, was hurled into an extraordinary test, for which he paid the ultimate price. More than 1 million military men and women have served in Afghanistan or Iraq since 2001. But Smith is the only one whose actions earned an award nomination that has reached this point after wending its way through more than 12 levels of military and presidential reviews over the last two years. Smith's commanders submitted to the Army several eyewitness accounts, diagrams of the battle scene and other supporting documents. A year ago, an Army review board sent back the application, requesting more detailed information about the battle, Army officers said on Tuesday. Military officials said several factors weighed in nominating Smith for the medal, including the intensity of the 90-minute firefight on that scorching spring morning; the risk of the enemy attack to 100 other American soldiers; the ultimate defeat of the Iraqi attack; and Smith's death in battle. Since the medal was created in the Civil War, there have been 3,440 recipients, but only 842 since World War II, when the requirements were tightened. There are 125 living recipients of the award, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society in Mount Pleasant, S.C. Most recipients have been unsung soldiers who acted valiantly in moments of extraordinary pressure. More celebrated recipients include William F. Cody - Buffalo Bill - for gallantry as a scout; Theodore Roosevelt, for his charge up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War; and 2nd Lt. Audie Murphy, for heroics in World War II. "The Medal of Honor has great symbolic value," said Richard H. Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina. "For the American public, it says, 'We want to thank you with this very highest award possible.' For the troops, it says, 'This guy represented the best of soldiering that we aspire to.' " Smith was a combat engineer in Fort Stewart's 3rd Infantry Division that swept up from Kuwait on the march to Baghdad. His unit, B Company of the 11th Engineer Battalion, was attached to 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, and had seized its part of the Baghdad airport on the evening of April 3. The next morning, Smith and about 15 other soldiers were building a holding pen for prisoners in a compound on the north side of the highway into the airport, on the battalion's flank, when the compound came under attack by some 100 Iraqi soldiers. "He told me, 'We're in a world of hurt,'" Staff Sgt. Kevin W. Yetter said in an interview with The New York Times several weeks after the battle. "Yeah, I guess we were in a world of hurt." According to a draft of the medal citation and the company's soldiers, Smith organized the engineers' defense, calling in support from a Bradley fighting vehicle. Under a barrage of mortar fire, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire, he hurled a grenade over the compound's wall and blasted an antitank missile at a guard tower. Still, Iraqi soldiers held the tower and kept firing into the compound. "We were pinned down," 1st Sgt. Tim Campbell told The Providence Journal, which had a reporter traveling with troops at the airport. "They had this planned. They found the lightest-defended area and attacked." A mortar round hit an armored engineering vehicle known as an M-113. Yetter was inside it. The blast momentarily blinded him. It also seriously wounded Sgt. Louis D. Berwald, the gunner on top, and another soldier. Smith helped evacuate the three to an aid station, which was suddenly imperiled by the mounting attack. Faced with pulling back to a safer position or holding fast, Smith took over Berwald's .50-caliber gun, firing and reloading before he was shot in the neck. Smith grew up in Tampa, enlisted in the Army in 1989 and served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. As a sergeant, he was considered a taskmaster, insisting his troops keep their weapons spotless, Cpl. Daniel Medrano, who served with the sergeant in Bosnia in 2001, told The St. Petersburg Times. Smith would push a cotton swab into rifle barrels, looking for dirt, Medrano said. Reached at her home in Holiday, Fla., on Tuesday, Smith's widow, Birgit, expressed gratitude. "I'm proud and honored that Paul would be recognized by his country in such a meaningful way," she said in a telephone interview. "He loved his country; he loved the Army; and he loved his soldiers." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/EHLuJD/.WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
