Center For American Values....Pueblo, Colorado

DATE:  April 2, 2016                                         

SITE:  Center For American Values

LOCATION:  101 S. Main Street, Pueblo, Pueblo County, Colorado

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS: 

“What extraordinary things ordinary people can do when they place service above self”

Set along the very pretty Pueblo Riverwalk was this interesting place. 

Now, now…don’t get all weirded out by the name of this place. This isn’t some ultra-conservative think tank or hideout or anything like that.

It is simply a place where Medal of Honor recipients are, well, honored. They seek to not only honor the recipients but to also educate all visitors about these amazing men. 

When you first walk in, you’ll notice that the walls are covered with pictures. Then you find out that each of those pictures represent a person who made extreme sacrifices to uphold the idea of freedom. 

So why is this in Pueblo, Colorado? Because they are known as the “City of Heroes”. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, upon awarding one recipient, stated “What is it in the water out there in Pueblo. All you guys turn out to be heroes”. 

They have portraits of 150+ recipients; each with a personal quote. Now this quote is totally up to the person, but can relate to the reason the medal was given, or values the person holds, or messages to the future. 

One thing I found fascinating…I’m sure every photographer struggles with choosing just the right picture and trying to get the person photographed to agree. This photographer, however, would choose his 3 best pictures and then let the person choose the one they wanted…How the person chose to be represented…how that person wants ME to see them. 

The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest military honor awarded only to military personnel for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States”. 

There are 3 versions, Army, Air Force and Navy (Marines and Coast Guard are awarded the Naval medal).

The medal was established in 1861 for the Navy and 1862 for the Army.

In total, there have been 3,514 medals given to 3,495 persons since 1862. Why the difference? Because 19 people have been recognized twice! The nation’s highest honor and they received two.

Think about it, since 1862, there have been millions and millions of people who have served in our military, and in the 150 since the Medal of Honors existence, only 3,495 people have received it.

And because the Medal of Honor was the ONLY award available, just less than ½ of those medals were awarded for service during the 4 years of the Civil War.

There was some disagreement over whether the medals should be given at all. It was a very European tradition and it was early enough in our history that we were still trying to shed any vestiges of appearing to be European.

The tradition is for the President to present the award but the first 6 medals were presented by the Secretary of War to six Union Army volunteers on March 25, 1863. The men had hijacked a Confederate train. Unfortunately the leader, a civilian, was ineligible to receive a medal.

As the medal is only for military personnel, there are two ways a recipient can be nominated…one, by the approval of their military chain of command and the other by a member of Congress, normally on behalf of a constituent.

In 1917, after concern was expressed that there were honorees who had received medals for reasons other than distinguished service, a review board looked at and removed 911 medals from the honor roll. These included a group who simply reenlisted to guard the capital during the Civil War and 29 members of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral detail.

Since 1941, more than half the medals (61.5%) presented have been posthumously to the recipient’s family.

Finally, in 1963 there was clarification of the “acts” that must be performed in order to be nominated for the award

• While engaged in action against an enemy of the United States; or
• While engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing foreign force; or 
• While serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict against an opposing armed force in with the United States is not a belligerent party

Just so you know, people are not just given the award and a nice “thanks” and then sent on their way. There are special privileges and courtesies that come along with it, such as…

• Receive a pension above and beyond military pensions
• Receives special entitlements in air transportation
• Eligibility for burial at Arlington National Cemetery
• Children are admitted to military academies regardless of nomination or quota’s
• Invited to all presidential inaugurations and inaugural balls

 

Those are by law, but in addition and I think this is really cool….members of the uniformed service are encouraged to render salutes to recipients as a matter of respect and courtesy regardless of rank or status…in or out of uniform. This would be one of the very few instances where someone may receive a salute from someone of higher rank.

Interesting facts about some recipients…

• There are 19 people who received the award twice…14 for separate actions and 5 who received both the Army and Navy medal for the same action
• Since WWII, 851 medals have been awarded with 523 of those posthumously
• One has been awarded to a woman, Mary Edwards Walker. In fact, hers was taken away during the 1917 review and then restored in 1977
• President Lincoln met privately with the first six soldiers to win the Honor
• There has been only one Coast Guardsman to receive the medal
• 65 Canadians have received the honor while serving in the U.S. military, most in the Civil War
• The youngest recipient was an 11 year old drummer in the Civil War (the youngest in the 20^th century was a 17 year old who shielded his fellow squad members from grenades)
• The 4 Unknowns entombed at Arlington are recipients of the medal…the Vietnam remains were identified and the family asked for the Medal of Honor assigned to those remains. The request was denied saying the award was for ALL Vietnam unknowns, not specifically this one.
• There are 5 foreign unknowns who have been designated with the Honor..British, French, Romanian, Italian and Belgian.
• Although the law says there must be an act of valor, there have been exceptions…Charles Lindbergh and Major General Adolphus Greeley
• The last person to receive two medals was in 1918
• There have been father and son recipients… Arthur MacArthur Jr. & Douglas MacArthur and also Theodore Roosevelt & Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
• Theodore Roosevelt is the only president to have received the Medal of Honor
• Five pairs of brothers have received the medal

The nomination and awarding of the Medal of Honor has not always been inclusive. Although a review was done in 1917, no one looked at whether some were being excluded for the reason of race, religion or sex.

A 1993 study to ensure that prejudice or discrimination had not deterred the nomination of some, it was found there were no medals awarded to any soldier of African American descent who served in WWII. Ten people who had received the Distinguished Service Cross were instead awarded the Medal of Honor.

A similar study in 1998 looked into the nomination, or lack thereof, for Asian Americans. In this case, the panel found 22 instances where the Medal of Honor should have been given and they were in 2000.

In 2014, as part of a Congressional mandated review, an additional 24 medals were given to Hispanic, Jewish and African Americans.

 I read several things about how the law protects someone saying they received the award, the wearing of the medal, and even how it’s made. Special protections under U.S. law makes it illegal for any unauthorized adornment, sale or manufacture. Curiously, since a Supreme Court decision in the early 2000’s, said it is illegal to wear a medal you were not awarded BUT you can say you received one without actually having done so.

A politician in California…figures…declared he was the recipient of the Medal of Honor. When it was found that he hadn’t, he was sentenced to jail time. He took his case all the way to the Supreme Court who ruled that his First Amendment “free speech” rights had been violated and the sentence was struck down. You’re kidding…apparently lying about receiving the highest honor in the military is protected by the First Amendment. All I can do is shake my head in bewilderment.

Not everyone may agree that we should have fought the wars, or conflicts, that the U.S. have been involved with…but you have to agree that these men took up arms when asked to by their country. They left their families and normal life and fought for the idea of freedom. These men, whose pictures line these walls, are the heroes we should be looking up to.

Wendover Airfield...Wendover, Utah

DATE:  October 5, 2015

HISTORICAL SITE:  Wendover Airfield

LOCATION:  Wendover, Toole Co., Utah  84083

MARKER #:  75001827

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:  

What an exciting place…so full of history!

There’s a driving tour but we didn't take it. It was hard enough finding the museum. Instead we watched a video in the museum which, in the end, was a vehicle for asking for donations. The exhibits were interesting and I hadn’t realized how much of a connection there was between Wendover Airfield and the bombings of Japan.

In 1940, Congress funded a base that was to be a bombing and gunnery range. Locations were scouted and Wendover was chosen because of availability and barrenness of the land. Ranchers protested saying the loss of 1.8 million acres of grazing land would wipe them out. The federal government kept going and building commenced in 1941.

In August 1941, one officer and 10 men moved in, with another 37 men coming soon after. The first course of business for these initial men was to set up targets on the salt flats. Eventually, because of the amount of salt, a “salt city” was built for bombing practice.

Training for the B-17 and B-24 bombers commenced in 1942. In the end, 21 bomber groups and over 1,000 aircrew were trained. These groups participated in strategic bombing in Germany, flew in support of D-Day and 3 groups are Medal of Honor recipients.

In 1944, the base changed from training bomber groups to fighter pilot training, but only 3 groups were graduated.

Unknown to most, the “Manhattan Engineer District” was established by FDR and a Colonel Tibbets was selected to head the team. Tibbets was one of very few who knew of the project and chose Wendover Airfield because of its isolation and the fact that it was virtually uninhabited.

With very little advanced notice, much haste and no explanation, the fighter pilot training was out and part of a unit based in the Marianna Islands was moved in.

Enola Gay Hanger

On December 17, 1944, 1,767 officers and men moved in, including civilian and military scientists. They were housed separately than the rest of the base. Information on their mission was so restricted that even members of the unit did not know the purpose of their training.

For the next six months, they tested 155 different shapes and sized bombs. As information came in, more and more complicated and sophisticated versions of “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” bombs were developed.

On July 16, 1944, there was a successful test of the “Fat Man” bomb in New Mexico.

Not long after, President Truman warned Japan of a bomb of extraordinary destruction…Japan chose to ignore the warning. There has been disagreement over the term “warning”, but it seemed to come in several forms.

The first to the Japanese government which is called the “Potsdam Declaration” ended with:

“We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.”

Some argue this is hardly a warning that the atomic bomb will be dropped but rather an ultimatum for peace.

The second “warning” were leaflets dropped on the population of several cities purported to be the ones being considered for bombing. The leaflets say:

"Read this carefully as it may save your life or the life of a relative or a friend. In the next few days, four or more of the cities named on the reverse side of this leaflet will be destroyed by American bombs. These cities contain military installations and workshops or factories, which produce military goods. We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique that they are using to prolong this useless war. Unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America's well-known humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities names and save your lives. America is no fighting the Japanese people but is fighting the military clique, which has enslaved the Japanese people. The peace, which America will bring, will free the people from the oppression of the Japanese military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan. You can restore peace by demanding new and better leaders who will end the War. We cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked, but at least four will be, so heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately."

The argument here is that this warning also says nothing about atomic bombs and that maybe the plan was more along the lines of psychological warfare than a true warning. Some say the Japanese population was already used to being bombed, so how could this have been any different?

On August 6, 1945, at 9:15am, the Enola Gay, having taken off from the Marianna Islands dropped “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan and three days later, “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki. The estimated total causalities were approximately 105,000 killed in the initial blasts with an additional 94,000 injured.

Another bomb shell was being ready to ship to the Marianna islands and there was enough plutonium stored at Los Alamos for one more bomb, but it was halted due to the impending surrender of Japan. 

Japan informally surrendered on August 19^th with formal surrender on September 2, 1945.

Wendover Airfield continued to produce “pumpkin” bombs and components for the atomic bombs until the end of the war

Immediately following the war, the men, and some of the buildings were moved to Oxnard, California to what would become Sandia Base. Wendover Airfield would be activated, re-tooled and then deactivated over the course of next 25 years. It would be instrumental in the development and testing of various bombs and rockets.

While most of the base has been given, first to the city of Wendover and then to Tooele County, there is still a portion that is used by the military and has been renamed the Utah Test and Training Range under the management of Hill Air Force Base.

Regardless of the public opinion of the use of the atomic bomb against civilian and military targets, it cannot be argued that this caused Japan to surrender. The argument is whether the price was worth the cost, but then, how many would have died if the war had continued on as it had? Even Colonel Tibbets said we must try to understand “the necessity for the decisions of the time”.

 

Once Dirk and I were done with the museum, the woman invited us to climb to the top of the control tower which, being from a litigious state such as California, was quite the surprise. I was able to make it about half way before feeling a bit of panic setting it but Dirk made it to the top and made the following SnapChat video.