UW To Honor Medal of Honor Recipients

This isn't a Husky sports story. But with Veterans Day coming up tomorrow we saw this interesting piece on the University of Washington news website.

Maybe Harry S. Truman said it best, as he so often did in his no-nonsense way.

A former World War I artilleryman and by then also former president, Truman wrote a letter in 1955 to Capt. Archie Van Winkle of the United States Marines -- one of the eight Congressional Medal of Honor recipients and UW alumni to be honored here on Veteran's Day, Nov. 11.

Truman had personally bestowed the medal on Van Winkle, who later mailed a photo of the moment for the president to sign. Happy to oblige, Truman wrote, "That Congressional Medal of Honor is the greatest honor that can come to a man, and I think I told you that I would rather have it than be President of the United States. I still feel that way."

A similar spirit will be in the air on Wednesday, when these eight soldiers and UW alumni who risked their lives for others in four foreign wars -- World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War -- are honored with a new, prominent campus memorial.

As the UW's own president, Mark Emmert, said of the new campus site, "The memorial will be a permanent, powerful reminder of the extraordinary things that can happen when ordinary people take action."

Festivities will start at 10 a.m. with a parade down Memorial Way to feature veterans groups, bands and a military color guard. Gen. Peter V. Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff and a graduate of the UW Evans School of Public Affairs, will deliver the main address at 10:30 a.m.

The Medal of Honor recipients are:

Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, major, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve,
Deming Bronson, first lieutenant, U.S. Army
Bruce Crandall, lieutenant colonel (ret.), U.S. Army
Robert E. Galer, brigadier general (ret.), U.S. Marine Corps.
John D. "Bud" Hawk, sergeant, U.S. Army
Robert Leisy, second lieutenant, U.S. Army
William Kenzo Nakamura, private first class, U.S. Army
Archie Van Winkle, colonel (ret.), U.S. Marine Corps

Both Wednesday's events and the library exhibit are open to the public. Learn more about the memorial and read the Medal of Honor citations for all eight men online here. For more information about the Medal of Honor, visit online here.