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US Military Veterans NewsApril 11, 2006

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Iraq hero joins hallowed group -By ALEX LEARY, Times Staff Writer Published February 2, 2005
President Bush will present America's top award for bravery to the family of the sergeant who died defending his soldiers.
Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, who spent his boyhood in Tampa, became a man in the Army and died outside Baghdad defending his outnumbered soldiers from an Iraqi attack, will receive America's highest award for bravery.

President Bush will present the Medal of Honor to Smith's wife, Birgit, and their children Jessica, 18, and David, 10, at a ceremony at the White House, possibly in March.

THE LAST FULL MEASURE OF DEVOTION
For a multimedia report on the story of Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, published as a special section in the Times last year, click here.

Sgt. Paul Smith (right) is the first soldier from the Iraq war to get the medal, which hadn't been awarded since 1993.
 The official announcementwill come soon, but the Pentagon called Mrs. Smith with the news Tuesday afternoon.

"We had faith he was going to get it," Mrs. Smith said from her home in Holiday, "but the phone call was shocking. It was overwhelming. My heart was racing, and I got sweaty hands. I yelled, "Oh, yes!' ... I'm still all shaky. "People know what's he's done ... people know that to get a Medal of Honor you have to be a special person or do something really great."

What Paul Smith did on April 4, 2003, was climb aboard an armored vehicle and, manning a heavy machine gun, take it upon himself to cover the withdrawal of his men from a suddenly vulnerable position.

Smith was fatally wounded by Iraqi fire, the only American to die in the engagement.

"I'm in bittersweet tears," said Smith's mother, Janice Pvirre. "The medal isn't going to bring him back. ... It makes me sad that all these other soldiers have died. They are all heroes."

With the medal, Smith joins a most hallowed society.

Since the Civil War, just 3,439 men (and one woman) have received the Medal of Honor. It recognizes only the most extreme examples of bravery - those "above and beyond the call of duty."

That oft-heard phrase has a specific meaning: The medal cannot be given to those who act under orders, no matter how heroic their actions. Indeed, according to Library of Congress defense expert David F. Burrelli, it must be "the type of deed which, if he had not done it, would not subject him to any justified criticism."

From World War II on, most of the men who received the medal died in the action that led to their nomination. There are but 129 living recipients.

Smith is the first soldier from the Iraq war to receive the medal, which had not previously been awarded since 1993. In that year, two Army Special Forces sergeants were killed in Somalia in an action described in the bestselling book Black Hawk Down.

The officer who called Birgit Smith on Tuesday nominated her husband for the medal.

Lt. Col. Thomas Smith (no relation) sent in his recommendation in May 2003, beginning a process that involved reviews at 12 levels of the military chain of command before reaching the White House. On Tuesday, Lt. Col. Smith expressed satisfaction that the wait was over, and great admiration for his former subordinate.

In the Army, he said, you hear about men who won the Medal of Honor. "You think they are myths when you read about them. It's almost movielike. You just don't think you'd ever meet someone like that."

Paul Smith, he said, was not a "soft soldier" who suddenly got tough under fire. "This was a guy whose whole life experience seemed building toward putting him in the position where he could do something like this. He was demanding on his soldiers all the time and was a stickler for all the things we try to enforce. It's just an amazing story."

Lt. Col. Smith commanded the 11th Engineer Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, during the American attack on Iraq, which began March 20, 2003. On the morning of April 4, the engineers found themselves manning a roadblock not far from Baghdad International Airport.

A call went out for a place to put some Iraqi prisoners.

Sgt. Smith volunteered to create a holding pen inside a walled courtyard. Soon, Iraqi soldiers, numbering perhaps 100, opened fire on Smith's position. Smith was accompanied by 16 men.

Smith called for a Bradley, a tank-like vehicle with a rapid fire cannon. It arrived and opened up on the Iraqis. The enemy could not advance so long as the Bradley was in position. But then, in a move that baffled and angered Smith's men, the Bradley left.

Smith's men, some of whom were wounded, were suddenly vulnerable.

Smith could have justifiably ordered his men to withdraw. Lt. Col. Smith believes Sgt. Smith rejected that option, thinking that abandoning the courtyard would jeopardize about 100 GIs outside - including medics at an aid station.

Sgt. Smith manned a 50-caliber machine gun atop an abandoned armored personnel carrier and fought off the Iraqis, going through several boxes of ammunition fed to him by 21-year-old Pvt. Michael Seaman. As the battle wound down, Smith was hit in the head. He died before he could be evacuated from the scene. He was 33.

The Times published a lengthy account of the battle, and Smith's life in January 2004. It can be seen at www.sptimes.com/paulsmith

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The Department of Defense announced today that the Headquarters, V Corps, Heidelberg, Germany, and major subordinate units of the Corps will deploy to Iraq in support of the Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Headquarters, V Corps is scheduled to replace XVIII Airborne Corps as the headquarters for the Multi-national Corps-Iraq in early 2006.

Major subordinate units of V Corps scheduled to deploy include the 3rd Corps Support Command, V Corps Artillery, 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, 130th Engineer Brigade, 22nd Signal Brigade and 30th Medical Brigade, are all based in Germany.

Other units identified as part of this rotation were previously announced on Dec. 14, 2004, Jan.4, and Jan.18, 12005.

DoD will continue to announce large units as they are identified and alerted.

 http://www.defenselink.mil

Early Bird News Blog

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Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Legion To Testify On FY 2006 VA Budget Take Action!

Tomorrow, The American Legion will be testifying before the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee concerning the inadequate VA budget request for FY 2006. Your senator needs to hear from you that the President's budget request is a disaster for veterans in your state.

* The medical care budget request is woefully inadequate by about $2.4 billion. It currently takes about $1.4 billion in additional funds each year just to maintain current VA services and the federal pay raise;
* Increasing the prescription co-payments from $7 to $15 will place a financial strain on many veterans living on modest fixed incomes;
* The proposed $250 enrollment fee is an insult to every honorably discharged veteran asked to pay for an earned benefit. Many of these veterans are Medicare-eligible; these veterans' private insurance companies already reimburse VA for treatment, but are prohibited from using their Medicare-funded eligibility in the VA system;
* According to VA the goal of these two initiatives is to generate an additional $424 million and, hopefully, drive 1.1 million veterans out of the VA health care system; and
* The budget proposal also seeks to limit the number of veterans in State veterans' homes that VA will pay per diem for and repeal VA's currently mandated inpatient nursing home care bed census. These long-term care initiatives will have a serious economic impact on the State veterans' homes.

Contact your U.S. senators on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. They include: Senators Larry Craig (ID); Arlen Specter (PA); Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX); Lindsey Graham (SC); Richard Burr (NC); John Ensign (NV); John Thune (SD); Johnny Isakson (GA); Daniel Akaka (HI); John Rockefeller (WV); Jim Jeffords (VT); Patty Murray (WA); Barack Obama (IL); and Ken Salazar (CO). They must hear from The American Legion.

The next day, The American Legion will be testifying before the House Veterans' Affairs Committee concerning the President's budget request. Members of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee include: Representatives Steve Buyer (IN); Mike Biliarkis (AL); Terry Everett (AL); Cliff Stearns (FL); Jerry Moran (KS); Richard Baker (LA); Henry Brown (SC); Jeff Miller (FL); John Boozman (AR); Jeb Bradley (NH); Ginny Brown-Waite (FL); Devin Nunes (CA); Mike Turner (OH); Lane Evans (IL); Bob Filner (CA); Luis Gutierrez (IL); Corrine Brown (FL); Vic Snyder (AR); Mike Michaud (ME); Stephanie Herseth (SD); Ted Strickland (OH); Darlene Hooley (OR); Silvestre Reyes (TX); Shelley Berkley (NV); and Tom Udall (NM). They also must hear from The American Legion.

Remember, three of our champions on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee are gone: former Chairman Chris Smith (NJ), Rob Simmons (CT), and Rick Renzi (AZ). Chairman Buyer believes there are too many veterans using the VA health care system that shouldn't be there. We believe he will be supportive of only treating service-connected disabled veterans and economically disadvantaged veterans. He believes the rest - Medicare-eligibles, military retirees, veterans with private health care options, and veterans with no health insurance - should go somewhere else. The President also wants to repeal a section of the Millennium Health Care Act (written by Representative Stearns) that mandated VA to maintain the same number of inpatient long-term care beds as VA had in 1998. The President wants to send more veterans to State veterans' homes or provide hospice and respite care, thereby "relieving" VA of the "burden" of so many veterans in its facilities.

All members of The American Legion family must contact the senators and representatives listed above. You can send them e-mail messages from the Legislative Action Center. Or, you can call the switchboard at the U.S. Capitol, at 202-224-3121, and ask to be transferred to the office of the senator or representative of your choice.

IF THEY DON'T HEAR FROM US - THEY'LL THINK WE REALLY DON'T CARE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. LET THEM KNOW!
 

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