Description:
A wounded soldier holds back an attack from a burning vehicle. An unarmed medic returns for men left on a shattered battlefield. A sailor searches a smoke-filled ship for a route that will bring his shipmates out alive.
In 100 Greatest Medal of Honor Stories, Gordon J. MacKenzie brings together the accounts of 100 distinct recipients across generations of American military history. From the Civil War and the world wars to Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, these short narratives focus on the situation each person faced, the action taken and the consequences that followed.
Familiar names such as Audie Murphy, Alvin York, Desmond Doss and John Basilone appear alongside Mary Edwards Walker, George Watson, Christian Fleetwood and others whose service deserves close attention. Soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and a Coast Guardsman face different duties and different dangers. Their stories include battlefield leadership, rescue under fire, medical service, naval and aviation actions, resistance in captivity and sacrifice in defence of others.
Arranged in ten thematic sections, the collection can be read from beginning to end or explored one recipient at a time. Each profile includes an action dateline, while numbered source notes and an alphabetical recipient index provide a route back to the records and individual accounts. The narratives recognise both the courage of the actions and the losses, injuries and delayed recognition that could follow.
This is a selected collection, not an official ranking or a complete roll of recipients. The word greatest describes remarkable stories without suggesting that courage beyond these pages mattered less. Book 1 in the Medal of Honor Stories series, it is an independent work of historical nonfiction for readers interested in the people behind military history.