I have been concerned by the recent press coverage of a living Medal of Honor recipient, who is facing challenges getting work, and decided to do some research on the Web to find out more about past Medal of Honor Recipients.
I started with a simple Google search that turned out to give unexpected results; there are multiple web sites with recipient names and a game by the same name!
So I looked for official sites and information like Wikipedia and the United States Army. At the latter, I found history, statistics, recipients, recommendation process, and resources.
I noticed that only the most recent recipients, like SFC Jared C. Monti, had their own web sites (at least US Army official ones listed), and I thought they should all have web address (just like individual grave markers, if they are deceased, as many are, as indicated by an * in front of their name).
I decided to build a knowledgebase dashboard to accomplish this remembrance they so deserve in our social media society of today. I also decided to include the Wikipedia links as well, such as for Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta, the most recent recipient whose story both touched me emotionally and excited me by its use of batttescape visualizations.
So I started with the most recent recipients and worked backwards through the nearly 3500 recipients.
An especially interesting result: Nineteen men have been awarded the Medal of Honor twice.”
But the real stories are in the links now from the individual names in the dashboard. President Obama’s remarks on November 16, 2010, to Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta, his family, and his company are especially noteworthy:
“Of all the privileges that come with serving as President of the United States, I have none greater than serving as Commander-in-Chief of the finest military that the world has ever known. And of all the military decorations that a President and a nation can bestow, there is none higher than the Medal of Honor.
“Today, therefore, marks the first time in nearly 40 years that the recipient of the Medal of Honor for an ongoing conflict has been able to come to the White House and accept this recognition in person. It is my privilege to present our nation’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, to a soldier as humble as he is heroic: Staff Sergeant Salvatore A. Giunta.
“Now, I already mentioned I like this guy, Sal. And as I found out myself when I first spoke with him on the phone and when we met in the Oval Office today, he is a low-key guy, a humble guy, and he doesn’t seek the limelight. And he’ll tell you that he didn’t do anything special; that he was just doing his job; that any of his brothers in the unit would do the same thing. In fact, he just lived up to what his team leader instructed him to do years before: “You do everything you can.”
“Staff Sergeant Giunta, repeatedly and without hesitation, you charged forward through extreme enemy fire, embodying the warrior ethos that says, “I will never leave a fallen comrade.”
“This medal today is a testament to his uncommon valor, but also to the parents and the community that raised him; the military that trained him; and all the men and women who served by his side.