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The Hall of Honor is reserved for people of sterling character, moral integrity, self denial and discipline. One cannot be listed in the Hall of Honor without first being carefully considered and studied, and by displaying conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of their life, above and beyond the call of duty, or by the display of the above-mentioned traits. Only the best are admitted.
In addition to taking a look at the lives of men of honor, I have listed several battles of heroic and extraordinary proportions; bloody battles where the soldiers involved went through Hell before surrending, and often never surrendering at that. May it be a reminder to us to never forget their sacrifices.
Robert E. Lee
 Lee grew up in Virginia, fatherless by age 6 and left by his brothers to care for his invalid mother at 13. A man of sterling character and personal discipline, he graduated second in his class at West Point, and was the first - and only - man to ever graduate without one single demerit. This in itself says everything about his self denial and discipline.
He later went on to join the Corps of Engineers (the elite of the Army at that time) and then fight in the Mexican war. His leadership abilities merited him the rank of general during the Civil War, choosing to side with the Confederacy. He did not believe in secession or slavery, but he could not bring himself to draw his sword against his homeland, even when offered command of the Northern armies by President Lincoln. His decision was not a hasty one.
If he had not been such an excellent soldier and leader, perhaps the Civil War would not have been so long and bloody. But had it not been so long and bloody, perhaps a second Civil War would have been imminent. Who can say how one man can influence history? Perhaps a finer soldier never lived. See pictures and read a biography here .
Richard D. Winters
 Richard Winters joined the paratroopers in World War II. It was the hardest military training the Army had to offer at that time. After leading the men of Easy Company to victory on D-day, behind enemy lines, he continued to do so throughout the war.
A man of integrity, morality, discipline and character, he was also an excellent leader. When other officers were inadequate, shell-shocked, or KIA, he stepped up to the plate and saved the company more than once, demonstrating superior leadership abilities and battle tactics.
He fought with them in Bastogne in the famous Battle of the Bulge, and the war took them all over Europe, including through Austria and Germany, and finally, Hitler's "Eagle's Nest". He is known as the "Biggest Brother" of the "Band of Brothers".
I believe Major Winters' actions merit the Medal of Honor and then some. Alot of other people think so too, and all these decades later, they and Winters' men are still trying to get it for him. His health is failing and soon it will be too late. Go to an official site to read more about it, or sign the petition directly, now!
Learn more about Winters and the rest of Easy Company by reading the book by Stephen Ambrose, "Band of Brothers", or Winters' biography, the book "Biggest Brother: the Life of Major Dick Winters, the Man Who Led the Band of Brothers" by Larry Alexander. Both can be obtained through the Military Book Club or www.amazon.com.
Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon
Randall Shughart was born in Lincoln, Nebraska where his father was stationed at Lincoln Air Force Base. After his father was discharged, the family moved to Newville, Pennsylvania and Shughart grew up on the family’s dairy farm. A graduate of Big Spring High School in Newville, he had a brother and two sisters, and worked hard tending the herd and farming. He enlisted in the Army while still in school, and went to Ranger school at Ft. Lewis in Washington after basic training. After qualifying for Special Forces, he was transferred to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina before being sent to Somalia. When was killed in Somalia he left behind his wife, Stephanie.
I don’t know as much about Gary Gordon except that he left behind his wife, Carmen, and two children and was 33 years old when he was killed. He grew up in a small town in Maine. One thing I do know is that, as a youngster in the Boy Scouts, he wasn’t goofing off. Michael Durant, the pilot who was saved by Shughart and Gordon, wrote in his book, "In the Company of Heroes":
"I got a book on the Medal of Honor from the local library. The book was full of interesting historical facts, and its record of heroic deeds was quite overwhelming. But when I got to the back of the book, what I found truly astounded me. There, located in a small pocket, was the library checkout card...
Apparently, the book had been checked out only a few times since its publication, and the last reader had taken it home almost 20 years before. The last person to sign out that book on the Congressional Medal of Honor would in fact become the next recipient of our nation's highest military award. It was a young teenager named Gary Gordon."
Both men were members of a Delta Force sniper team.
During a raid in Mogadishu on October 3rd, 1993, MSG Gary Gordon and SFC Randall Shughart, leaders and members of a sniper team with Task Force Ranger in Somalia, were providing precision and suppressive fires from helicopters above two helicopter crash sites. Learning that no ground forces were available to rescue one of the downed aircrews and aware that a growing number of enemy were closing in on the site, Gordon and Shughart volunteered to be inserted to protect their critically wounded comrades. Their initial request was turned down because of the danger of the situation. They asked a second time; permission was denied. Only after their third request were they inserted.
The two men were inserted one hundred meters south of the downed chopper. Armed only with their personal weapons, the two NCOs fought their way to the downed choppers through intense small arms fire, a maze of shanties and shacks, and the enemy converging on the site. After they pulled the wounded from the wreckage, they established a perimeter, put themselves in the most dangerous position, and fought off a series of attacks. They continued to protect the Rangers, namely Durant, until they had depleted their ammunition and were themselves fatally wounded. Their actions saved the life of an Army pilot - Mike Durant.
They lived their values to the end. They were not men who recited a few honorable words because they had to; raised heck on the weekends; came back to base; and then withered under fire when they were sent on a mission. They were professionals, they were moral men, they had character - and when you get right down to it, yes, they were heroes.
Paul R. Smith
 Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith, an Army engineer who displayed "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty", for his selfless sacrifice was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor this year on April 4th - exactly two years to the day that he was killed in Iraq.
He and the other troops with him were constructing a bridge outside of Baghdad when they were attacked by a more than company-sized group of insurgents. Being outnumbered with no orders, no preparation and not many weapons, Smith organized the men into two platoons to fight back.
When he saw that the troops were going to be overrun, he ran alone under withering enemy fire to engage the enemy with a .50 caliber machine gun mounted atop a damaged armored personnel carrier. He fought to the death, killing over 20 enemy soldiers himself and resulting in over 50 enemy dead in all. He was the only American soldier killed in that skirmish. The men he fought for owe their very lives to him. He left behind a wife, son and daughter.
Among the many other medals he recieved is a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Read all about it here.
Pat Tillman
 Pat Tillman was perhaps best known as a football player, but he was far more than that. He wouldn't want to be called one, but he was a hero in every sense of the word.
Born in San Jose, California, Tillman started his college career at the linebacker position for Arizona State University in 1994, when he secured the last remaining scholarship for the team. Tillman excelled as a linebacker at Arizona State, despite being relatively small for the position at 5' 11''. As a senior he was voted the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year.
In the 1998 NFL Draft, he was selected as the 226th pick by the Arizona Cardinals. Tillman moved over to play the safety position in the NFL, and started 10 of 16 games in his rookie season.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Tillman turned down a $3.6 million contract from the Cardinals to enlist in the U.S. Army along with his brother Kevin. Tillman and his brother completed training for Ranger school in late 2002, and were assigned to the second battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment in Fort Lewis, Washington. Tillman and his brother were both deployed to the Middle East as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Tillman was later redeployed to Afghanistan, where he was killed in action while on patrol when his unit was attacked in an ambush on April 22nd, 2004, near the Pakistan border. He was the only Ranger killed in the attack.
Tillman was the first professional football player to be killed in combat since the death of Bob Kalsu of the AFL's Buffalo Bills, who died in the Vietnam War in 1970.
Many men leave families and home to fight for our country, but few have the selflessness within them to walk away from a multi-million dollar contract and the game he excelled at to become an unknown soldier in the Rangers. He refused publicity and interviews of any kind about his descision, choosing to sacrifice quietly and selflessly. He left behind his wife, Marie.
Despite the attempts of many selfish, jealous and otherwise raunchy wretches to condemn him since then - including calling him a "misled idiot" who enlisted to "kill Arabs" - Tillman will always be a hero in my book who displayed the honest, unperverted, selfless sacrifice that is so sadly lacking in today's military. Click here to read more.
Bart Starr
Bryan Bartlett Starr, born January 9th, 1934, in Montgomery, Alabama, is a former professional football player and coach. Wearing #15, he was the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers (1956-1971) and the MVP of the first two Super Bowls. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977, and earned four Pro Bowl selections. The son of an Air Force NCO, Starr played college football at Alabama, and was a 17th round draft pick (200th overall) in the 1956 NFL draft. After his playing career, Starr was the head coach of the Packers for nine seasons (1975-1983), compiling a 52-76-3 record.
As Vince Lombardi's quarterback, Starr's Packers won NFL Championships in the 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966, and 1967 seasons. Following the NFL championships in 1966 and 1967, he led the Packers to convincing victories over the champions of the rival AFL in the first two Super Bowls. He is the only player to quarterback a team to five NFL championships.
His father was in the service so his family moved around a great deal. He said that he had various exposure to different atmospheres but one of the common denominators was that they were always in a good strong church. Wherever his father was based, wherever they lived, that was something that was consistent in their lives and in the end it made a huge difference in his life.
His strong moral character and faith are exceptional, especially in the world of sports. When asked in an interview how discipline applies to football in being a better player and how it would apply to the Christian life in making a person a better Christian, he said: "...it's a word that is not used enough in our society. It's not emphasized enough. I think if you are going to succeed you must be disciplined. If you even flip it over to the religious or faithful side, that discipline is a must because if you are going to be strong in your faith you have to discipline yourself to work your way through the very difficult times and have the strength to know that if you are (disciplined) then you can survive those times."
He also spoke of obedience. "Let's start with God because when we are obedient to the teaching of God and of Christ, it's rather simple how we can succeed in our lives and live the kind of lives which He wants us to. It's when we are not obedient that we have our problems, but if we are focused on that word I think that most everything will fall into place."
Read more abour Bart Starr here.
The Battle of the Bulge
 The German Ardennes Offensive, known as the Battle of the Bulge, started in late December 1944 and was the last major German offensive on the Western Front during World War II. The German army had intended to split the Allied line in half, capturing Antwerp and then proceeding to sweep north to encircle and destroy four Allied armies, thus as Hitler believed, forcing the Western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis' favor.
Although ultimately unsuccessful, the offensive nevertheless tied down huge amounts of Allied resources, and the slow response of the Allies to the resulting gap in their lines erased months from their timetable. However, the offensive also allowed the Allies to severely deplete the cream of the German army outside the defenses of the Siegfried Line and left Germany's remaining forces in a poor state of supply, thus greatly easing the assault on Germany afterward. In numerical terms, it is the largest battle the United States Army has fought to date.
If you were to look at a map of the German and Allied lines during the battle, there was, in fact, a "bulge" in the Allied lines where it threatened to break. Only thanks to the perseverance, determination and sacrifice of our soldiers under extreme circumstances were we able to hold off Hitler's armies. Freezing, starving and running dangerously low on ammo, they held out. Read the book, "The Longest Winter" by Alex Kershaw, which is available at The Military Book Club, or read more by searching for the title of this article at Wikipedia.
Dien Bien Phu
 There is far too much to tell about the battle of Dien Bien Phu, fought by the French Airborne and Foreign Legion against the Viet Minh forces under Vo Nguyen Giap from March 3th to May 8th, 1954. It was exceptionally long and bloody, especially for the French, who fought with steeled determination. At the height of the battle, the Vietnamese used loudspeakers to exhort the French to desert. They addressed mainly the Legionnaires who were known for their spirit of adventure. Leaflets were dropped on the camp, encouraging mutiny and promising to spare the lives of deserters. This had little effect, and these brave men stayed on in what could have almost been called a massacre.
The official website tells everything you need to know about it and is an honorable tribute to those who fought and died at Dien Bien Phu. |
