He carried a camera, not a rifle—but when the grenade landed among his fellow Marines, Corporal William T. Perkins Jr. didn’t hesitate to trade his life for theirs.
Blinded in one eye and bleeding from his wounds, he refused to stop—dragging his commander and two fellow soldiers from a Korean hillside under a storm of enemy fire.
He charged into an enemy bunker with nothing but courage — and when the smoke cleared, seven enemy lay dead, and one wounded American lived because of him.
When the dark waters off Guadalcanal erupted in fire, Rear Admiral Norman Scott steered straight into the storm — outgunned, outnumbered, and utterly unafraid.
Crawling through the streets of Bardenberg under relentless machine gun fire, Jack Pendleton knew he wouldn’t make it back — but he went anyway, so his brothers could.
In the shattered fields near Cunel, France, one determined Hoosier officer fought three machine gun nests alone—killing enemy after enemy with rifle, pistol, and even a pickaxe.
When enemy guns tore his company apart, Corporal James Heriot didn’t retreat—he charged forward alone, bayonet fixed, to silence death itself.
