Uncommon valor

He led his squad, then, to assist another, beleaguered unit. After helping to evacuate wounded comrades, he went back to the scene of the heaviest fighting.
Ordered, finally, to an evacuation point by an officer, “Sgt. O’Malley gathered his besieged and badly wounded squad, and boldly led them under fire to a helicopter for withdrawal,” his Medal of Honor citation reported. “Although three times wounded in this encounter, and facing imminent death from a fanatic and determined enemy, he steadfastly refused evacuation and continued to cover his squad’s boarding of the helicopters while, from an exposed position, he delivered fire against the enemy until his wounded men were evacuated.”
Thomas Noonan — like O’Malley an Irish New Yorker with family roots in Woodside — was another whose heroic actions in Vietnam have been held up as exemplary by fellow Marines in the decades since.
Noonan’s citation describing the events near the Vandergrift Combat Base, on Feb. 5, 1969, said that as a group of Marines “commenced a slow and difficult descent down the side of the hill made extremely slippery by the heavy rains, the leading element came under heavy fire from a North Vietnamese army unit occupying well-concealed positions in the rocky terrain.”
When four wounded comrades were cut off, “repeated attempts to recover them failed because of the intense hostile fire. L/Cpl. Noonan moved from his position of relative security and, maneuvering down the treacherous slope to a location near the injured men, took cover behind some rocks.
“Shouting words of encouragement to the wounded men to restore their confidence, he dashed across the hazardous terrain and commenced dragging the most seriously wounded man away from the fire-swept area. Although wounded and knocked to the ground by an enemy round, L/Cpl. Noonan recovered rapidly and resumed dragging the man toward the marginal security of a rock.”
O’Malley and Noonan, both born in 1943, were among the 240 men who received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for bravery, for service in Vietnam.
However, while O’Malley got his medal in person from President Lyndon Johnson on Dec. 6, 1966, and served another seven years, Noonan was mortally wounded when hit again by enemy bullets before he could reach the rock on that day in February 1969. His official citation said: “He gallantly gave his life for his country.”
The two Marines were continuing an Irish tradition that goes back to the inception of the medal in 1862. Of the approximately 1,700 recipients currently listed for the decades up to World War I, no less than 130 were Irish-born, most of them Civil War-era soldiers. One source suggests that, overall, there are 256 recipients from Ireland on the list, the largest contingent amongst the 728 foreign-born medallists.
Perhaps the two most famous medallists of Irish heritage, however, were American born: William Cody, aka Buffalo Bill, was honored for his work as an Indian scout, and Audie Murphy entered the list for his heroics in World War II. (Cody and seven other scouts whose medals had been rescinded in a 1916 review had them restored in 1989. Most of the more than 900 who were removed from the list in that review were Union army volunteers who had gotten the medal as an inducement to extend their service.)
The trend in the 20th century was to award the Medal of Honor at lower rates than during the Civil War, when it was the sole award available for valor. For instance, only 441 Medals of Honor have been issued for service during World War II, which saw 16 million Americans in uniform and by far the most U.S. army battle casualties of any conflict.
The first medal of the 21st century has been given posthumously to Paul Ray Smith, a native of Tampa, Fl., for his “extraordinary heroism and uncommon valor,” during the battle for Baghdad airport in March 2003. President George W. Bush presented the medal to his wife and children last month.
The medal is awarded in the name of Congress to a person, who, while a member of the armed forces, “distinguishes himself or herself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty…”
Other famous recipients include the 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt (awarded by Bill Clinton in 2001); a modern-day politician, former Senator Bob Kerrey; and a pioneering aviator, Charles Lindbergh, who was a member of the U.S. army when he made his New York-Paris solo flight in 1927. Lindbergh caused outrage when he accepted a similar award from Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Most though, like O’Malley and Noonan, will remain obscure, their superhuman bravery known only to their admiring comrades, families and communities.
They are, or were, ordinary Americans who, like the oldest living recipient, John Finn, displayed extraordinary selflessness and coolness in situations of extreme duress. The 17-year-old Finn’s mother had to accompany him when he went to sign up for the U.S. navy in San Diego, Ca., in 1926, because he looked 12. He was a married man and a 15-year veteran, however, when he performed heroically at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
His 1942 citation said: “His complete disregard for his own life, in staying with his machine gun, although many times wounded, is the kind of American fighting spirit necessary for victory.”
Some like George H. O’Brien, Jr. — who died at age 78, in Midland, Texas, only a few weeks ago — settled quietly into civilian life after military service.
“He was a very humble man, and really you would have never known he was a recipient of the Medal of Honor unless someone else told you,” a friend said to a local newspaper after his death.
In Korea, on Oct. 27, 1952, O’Brien, a Marine 2nd lieutenant and platoon leader, led and encouraged his men in a four-hour engagement. And though seriously wounded, he used “his carbine to best advantage in savage hand-to-hand combat,” his citation said.
It continued: “By his exceptionally daring and forceful leadership in the face of overwhelming odds, 2d Lt. O’Brien served as a constant source of inspiration to all who observed him and was greatly instrumental in the recapture of a strategic position on the main line of resistance.”
O’Brien once said: “This Medal of Honor is not mine; I hold it in trust for so many young people who didn’t become grandfathers.”