The Medal of Honor is the United States' highest military decoration for acts of valor, above and beyond the call of duty. It is only awarded to US Military personnel. The medal has three versions for the Army, Navy and Air Force; Marine Corps and Coast Guard personnel who receive the medal are given the Navy version. Since its creation in 1861, the Medal of Honor has been awarded 3,515 times to service members; 621 of those were posthumous, or awarded for actions that resulted in the death of the person being awarded the medal. Half of the awards were for Americans fighting in the Civil War alone.
A Brief History of the Medal of Honor
The medal was first created for the US Navy in 1861 as the "Medal of Valor"; a year later, the Army created the "Medal of Honor" to acknowledge the sacrifices of soldiers fighting on the ground, and the Navy changed the name of its award soon after.
In 1861, US Army Lieutenant Colonel Edward D. Townsend submitted a proposal to the Army for a valor award, because the US Military did not have such awards at the time. Winfield Scott, the general-in-chief of the Army (today called the Chief of Staff of the Army, the highest ranking officer in the branch) denied the proposal because awarding valor awards to soldiers was a European tradition, and the US Military did everything in its power to distance itself from European roots.
After General Scott retired in October 1861, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles adopted Lt Col Townsend's proposal to "honor distinguished naval service." Iowa Senator James W. Grimes, Chairman on the Committee on Naval Affairs, proposed Public Resolution 82 in December 1861 to "promote the efficiency of the navy"; this provision included a section creating the Navy Medal of Honor.
In January 1862, Secretary Welles directed the Philadelphia Mint to design the medal, and ordered 175 of the medals with the words "Personal Valor" engraved on the back. The Army created their own Medal of Honor in July 1862, which were made of copper and coated in bronze, with the words "From the Congress to" on the back; the award was intended for privates and NCOs of the Army for valor on the battlefield. In July 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Medal of Honor as a permanent military decoration into law.
Officers in the US Military were not made elligible for the Medal of Honor until 1915; the US Air Force was created in 1947, but the branch did not get its own Medal of Honor until 1965. To that point, members of the Army Air Corps, Army Air Force and Air Force received the Army version.
Awards
The Medal of Honor has been awarded to 3,496 people since 1861. Of those, 19 people were awarded the medal twice. 14 of those people were awarded two medals for two separate actions, while the other five were awarded the Army and Navy versions for the same action. Today, only one medal is permitted per person.
The first Medal of Honor was presented to Private Jacob Parrott of the Union Army, and five of his comrades, for their involvement with the Andrews Raiders unit, which attacked and destroyed a Confederate train in Big Shanty, Georgia on April 12, 1862.
Corporal John F. Mackie became the first US Marine to be awarded the Medal of Honor for taking charge of deck guns on the USS Galena and directing rifle fire toward enemy positions on shore when many of the deck crew were killed or wounded; Corporal Mackie maneuvered about the deck under heavy fire to motivate his men and man several different deck guns and rifles.
The first Navy Medal of Honor was awarded to 41 sailors by Secretary of War Stanton on April 4, 1863 for their actions during the Battles of Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip.
The only Coast Guardsman to receive the Medal of Honor, Signalman First Class Douglas Munro, was a Canadian-American who singlehandedly evacuated 500 US Marines from Guadalcanal on September 27, 1942 while under heavy fire from Japanese troops. He was killed in the action and received the medal posthumously.
Mary Edwards Walker is the only woman to have received the Medal of Honor. The Union Army surgeon was awarded the medal in 1865 for two separate actions, one during the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861 and another for her part in the Battle of Atlanta in September 1864.
61 Canadians serving in the US Armed Forces have been awarded the Medal of Honor, with only 4 of them being after the Civil War. One was awarded to Peter C. Lemon, the only Canadian-born naturalized US citizen to receive the award, for actions during the Vietnam War.
In 1993, two Delta Force snipers, Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon became the first Medal of Honor recipients since the Vietnam War when they sacrificed their lives to secure a downed helicopter in Mogadishu, Somalia. Their actions saved the life of the helicopter pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Two Michael Durant. The incident was portrayed in the book and film "Black Hawk Down".
Only 14 Medals of Honor have been awarded for action during the War in Afghanistan, and 4 for the War in Iraq.
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