Across an open rice paddy swept by machine-gun fire, he attacked alone. Bunker by bunker, he broke the enemy line.
With bayonet fixed and bullets tearing the hillside around him, he chose momentum over cover. The charge followed him.
Under the fire of tanks and machine guns, wounded and bleeding, he refused to leave his men. Instead, he placed himself between them and death.
On a dark Pacific night, mortally wounded and bleeding on the bridge of his submarine, he chose the lives of his crew over his own. His final order sent them to safety.
In the choking undergrowth of the Mekong Delta, a split-second decision meant the difference between life and death for seven soldiers. He chose them.
On the ash-covered slopes of Iwo Jima, one Marine picked up a fallen bazooka and kept moving forward. By day’s end, an entire sector of the island’s defenses lay shattered behind him.
On a rain-slick mountainside in the A Shau Valley, one Marine chose motion over cover. He went downhill into fire so others could live.
