(Editor’s note: sorry for infrequent blogging; lots happening both in my veterans program and in MOH news… we finally have at long last, a living Recipient, and soon a 45 year-old wrong will be corrected with the the Medal of Honor presented to the family of a great hero who was KIA in 1968.
(And over the weekend some of our Host City group traveled to Houston to participate in the dedication of a monument to one of the true gentlemen who earned the nation’s highest award.
(More tonight about the real losers in the election---members of the Republican party ruling class, from Karl Rove to Charles Krauthammer).
1stSgt. David McNerney
CROSBY TEXAS – For likely the last time his troops regrouped.
The men of A Co., 1st Battn., 8th Infantry Regt., 4th Infantry Div. who fought a desperate battle 43 years ago were gathered to say goodbye… goodbye to the hard as nails “top sergeant” the young troops resisted and even disliked in training, but came to thank him once again for for their very lives, as well as those of their children and grandchildren.
In early spring 1967, career solider 1stSgt. David McNerney took command of his unit in Polei Doc, Republic of Vietnam; the commanding officer was dead and the NVA surrounded and threatened to decimate the inexperienced Americans.
McNerney, just two years from retirement, was everywhere over two days, drawing on a lifetime of experience and genuine love for soldiers young enough to be his sons.
McNerney would be awarded the Medal of Honor of the action which he insists was actually earned by the men in his command and that he simply wears it for them, especially those who died fighting a determined and fanatical enemy.
There is a deep sadness in their eyes. If only they could pay him back in kind for the four decades he’d given them, but cancer is too tough for 1stSgt McNerney, too much for his troops and in the end will succeed where an entire enemy battalion could not.
But this day, with smiles and stories shared with and about their leader, they could bask in a few hours of life that only survivors know, the payoff for those who have seen death and know first-hand that the difference in living and dying is a matter of inches, a sudden movement or miscalculation… or the great heroism of a combat leader.
Read the rest here.
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