Medal Of Honor

The other day, Ted Lingelbach, City College Class of '58, who edits the high school's alumni newsletter, contacted me. With Veterans Day coming up, he wanted to call my attention to the three City College graduates who were posthumously decorated with the Medal of Honor for heroism during World Wars I and II. Several years ago, a plaque to Henry G. Costin, Milton E. Ricketts and Isadore Jachman was unveiled outside the City College auditorium. Costin, who lived at 1041 Myrtle Ave., had gained fame playing football and baseball while a student at City College.

The nicknames of Rear Adm. Eugene B. Fluckey -- "The Galloping Ghost of the China Coast" and "Lucky Fluckey" -- meant to bring a little levity to the exploits of one of the most decorated sailors in history. But as loved ones and shipmates approached an urn on display under the vast dome of the Naval Academy chapel yesterday to say a few words, many stopped in awe, bowing slightly as a last homage to the man who sank 29 Japanese ships as a submarine commander in the Pacific on his way to receiving the Medal of Honor and four Navy Crosses.

Rear Adm. Eugene B. Fluckey never saw problems, only solutions that he would steadfastly work through. The philosophy stood him well during a naval career that spanned nearly 40 years. One of the Navy's top submarine commanders during World War II, the Medal of Honor recipient sank 29 ships, including an aircraft carrier, and members of his crew blew up a Japanese troop transport train on shore. And, for years afterward, he boasted that he never had to award a Purple Heart to any of his crew.

Howard County police this week awarded Officer Raymond Trodden the department's highest honor for shooting a suspect as he dragged another officer from a sport utility vehicle for several hundred feet. The injured officer, Pfc. Daniel Besseck, who suffered a herniated disk in his neck and lower back and nerve damage in the July 2006 confrontation, received the Purple Heart during the Police Department's annual awards ceremony Wednesday in the County Council chambers in Ellicott City. "He was trying to kill me," Besseck said during a video, in which he and Trodden described their efforts to arrest Robert Michael Brown of Frederick, who police said was naked from the waist down and had a crack pipe in his Hyundai SUV. Besseck thanked the department for its support during his recuperation.

CHICAGO -- The men who were there that day say they could see the options flicker across Michael Monsoor's face: save himself or save the men he had long considered brothers. He chose them. In the span of just seconds, on a rooftop in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, Monsoor watched the enemy grenade bounce to the ground. The 25-year-old Navy SEAL assessed that it likely would kill all three of his nearby comrades, men with wives and small children. He screamed, "Grenade!" then hurled himself on top of the explosive and bore the brunt of its lethal blast.

Paul J. Wiedorfer, a seasoned World War II infantryman, was in traction and recuperating from wounds in an English hospital when he heard the news. A fellow patient reading Stars and Stripes, asked him how he spelled his name and then said, "You know you got the Medal of Honor?" "That was the first I heard of it. When I found out I was getting it, I didn't even know what the hell it was," said Wiedorfer, now 85, in an interview from his Parkville home the other day. Wiedorfer, who was born and raised in Baltimore, is one of four Medal of Honor recipients thought to be residing in the state.

The United States Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation has named four alumni recipients of the academy's Distinguished Graduate Award, including a Medal of Honor winner and a two-time academy superintendent. The award recipients are: Capt. Thomas Hudner, a 1947 graduate; Adm. Kinnaird R. McKee, a 1951 graduate; Gen. Robert T. Herres, a 1954 graduate; and Adm. Charles R. Larson, a 1958 graduate. George P. Watt Jr., president and chief executive of the alumni association, said in a statement that the four men were chosen among a pool of hundreds of distinguished alumni.

1865: MEDAL OF HONOR Sgt. Decatur Dorsey, a Howard County native who served with the 39th U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War, received the Medal of Honor on Nov. 8, 1865, for his actions during the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg, Va. On July 30, 1864, according to the Medal of Honor citation, Dorsey "planted his colors on the Confederate works in advance of his regiment and when the regiment was driven back to the Union works he carried the...

When thousands of Civil War re-enactors and spectators gather at Gettysburg, Pa., next weekend to commemorate the 142nd anniversary of the war's pivotal battle, the courage of their forebears will be much on their minds. One indicator of the ferocity of the fighting at Gettysburg is the number of soldiers who received the Medal of Honor. "The Medal of Honor was born of the need to recognize the valor of soldiers in the Civil War, and nowhere were actions of bravery and courage in the war seen more than at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Stephen Gregg Sr., 90, who won the Medal of Honor for helping rescue seven wounded comrades in southern France during World War II, died Friday in Bayonne, N.J. With fellow soldiers wounded by grenades and under continuing attack, Mr. Gregg fired at the enemy and advanced up a hill followed by a medic. Later, he worked for the Hudson County, N.J., sheriff.