Medal of Honor for a Black World War I Hero?

Medal of Honor for a Black World War I Hero?
Posted: 7/13/11

Dorian de Wind
Retired U.S. Air Force Officer

"After a 93-year quest fraught with racial discrimination and hampered by military bureaucracy," Johnson's supporters, including Sen. Schumer, believe they have finally built an "ironclad case" to award the Medal of Honor posthumously to Sgt. Henry Johnson, an African-American hero who "fought with uncommon bravery in World War I."

Yesterday, Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry became only the second living recipient of the Medal of Honor for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at a White House ceremony where President Obama said the medal "reflects the gratitude of our entire nation."

And it does. Petry received the Medal of Honor for his heroism during a fire battle in eastern Afghanistan when he, already wounded, retrieved and threw a live grenade away from his fellow Rangers, preventing the serious injury or death of his comrades. But as he released the grenade, it detonated and catastrophically amputated his right hand.

There is absolutely no doubt that Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry deserves our nation's highest honor for exemplifying "gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of one's own life above and beyond the call of duty."


However, there are other cases of heroism where -- in my opinion and in the opinion of others -- such gallantry and intrepidity deserving of our nation's highest honor for bravery in combat is yet to be recognized or where such recognition has been very slow in coming.

One such case is Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peralta, who in a fire battle in Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004, while himself mortally wounded, shielded his fellow Marines from serious injury or even death by pulling an enemy-thrown grenade to his body, thereby absorbing the blunt of the blast and giving his life in the process.

Peralta was recommended for the Medal of Honor by the Commandant of the Marine Corps -- a recommendation that was endorsed by the Secretary of the Navy. Instead he received the Navy Cross.
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Medal of Honor for a Black World War I Hero