1 of 5
Col. Charles P. Murray Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.)
Photo by Anne McQuary
2 of 5
Lt. Michael E. Thornton, U.S. Navy SEAL (Ret.)
3 of 5
Master Sgt. John F. Baker Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.)
Photo by Anne McQuary
4 of 5
Capt. John J. McGinty III, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)
5 of 5
Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)
Photo by Anne McQuary
They are heroes among heroes, but no one who wears the Medal of Honor ever set out to be a recipient. The nation’s highest military commendation is awarded, often posthumously, for incredible individual sacrifice and gallantry in the worst of combat conditions. The recipients didn’t “win” them. And they don’t wear them for pride. They wear them to honor their brothers and sisters in arms, especially the ones who didn’t make it home.
Of the tens of millions of Americans who have served in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, fewer than 3,500 have been awarded the Medal of Honor, and today, there are fewer than 100 recipients currently alive.
Five heroes accredited to South Carolina were among the honorees when Charleston hosted Beyond Valor, the 2010 Medal of Honor Convention. Here are their stories as published in the September 2010 issue of South Carolina Living.
Col. Charles P. Murray Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.)
On Dec. 16, 1944, 1st Lt. Charles P. Murray Jr., while commanding Company C, 30th Infantry near Kaysersberg, France, descended into a valley and encountered a force of 200 Germans pouring deadly fire into an American battalion. Murray moved ahead of his unit to call in support, but his radio was dead, so he began launching rifle-fired grenades at the enemy. From his exposed position, he also used an automatic rifle to kill 20 enemy soldiers, wound many others and disable a truck carrying three German mortars. He then led his small patrol toward their original objective—securing a bridge. That action led to the capture of 10 German soldiers, but Murray suffered eight wounds from a grenade attack in the process. Though bleeding profusely, he refused to return to the rear and seek medical treatment until the deployment was completed.
Seasoned combat veteran Charles P. Murray was still fighting his way across Europe when he learned secondhand that he was to receive the Medal of Honor. His wife sent him the news in a hometown newspaper clipping. The presentation was made by Gen. Geoffrey Keyes on July 5, 1945, at the Salzburg airport, and the ceremony included all 15,000 men of the 3rd Infantry Division passing the reviewing stand.
That kind of reception would make it hard to leave the Army, and Murray made it a career. Before retiring as a colonel in 1973, he went on to see combat again as an infantry brigade commander in Vietnam, where both his sons also served.
”I don’t really see myself as a hero,” Murray said. “As for the medal, I was just recognized for something that others thought was very extraordinary. Most of the recipients are like me. We wear the medal ourselves, but we really wear them for others, for the men who were killed in our unit, in our company, for the men who might have received this medal if there were proper witnesses or someone had recommended them.”
Murray now lives in Columbia, where he frequently visits schools and meets with troops at Fort Jackson, often at the invitation of command officers. He said he always comes away impressed with the soldiers and officers in today’s military.
“They’re still first-class people, and nowadays they’re more educated than we were, with high school and college and great training programs while they’re in the Army,” Murray said. “But they’re also every bit as committed as we were, and it gives me confidence in the people we have serving today, knowing that something like this is as meaningful today as it was back in my day.”
Editor’s note: Col. Murray died of congestive heart failure Aug. 12, 2011, at his home in Columbia. He was 89.
_____
Lt. Michael E. Thornton, U.S. Navy SEAL (Ret.)
On Oct. 31, 1972, Petty Officer Michael E. Thornton, a U.S. Navy SEAL, risked his life to save his superior officer while engaged in a daring operation to gather intelligence at the Cua Viet River Base. Serving as advisors to the Vietnamese Navy, Thornton and his lieutenant joined a river patrol that strayed into North Vietnam. They had barely reached land when they were engaged in a five-hour firefight. Though wounded in the back, Thornton inflicted numerous casualties on the enemy before his team returned to the water to avoid being surrounded. Upon learning that his lieutenant was believed to be dead, Thornton charged 500 yards through heavy fire and found his fellow SEAL suffering from a severe head wound but still alive. He quickly dispatched two enemy soldiers standing over the wounded man, and removed his lieutenant to the water’s edge. There he towed his senior officer and another wounded man seaward for approximately two hours before they were rescued.
After Vietnam, Greenville native Michael Thornton continued his service to the nation. His 25-year career included several tours of Southeast Asia, the training of future SEALs and British allies, and the preparation of rapid-deployment teams for the first Gulf War. Before he retired as a lieutenant in 1992, Thornton was the Navy’s only recipient of the Medal of Honor still serving on active duty.
Thornton has seen and learned a lot since that day he received his medal on Oct. 15, 1973, from President Richard Nixon. And he has a lot to share, leading to his current career as a motivational speaker.
“This medal we all wear so proudly belongs to every man and woman who has ever served, most of all to those who made the ultimate sacrifice, who never got to raise their children or see their grandchildren,” he says. “Many of them deserved this as much as me. I’m just kind of a custodian of this tradition, and I’ll never understand why I survived while so many others didn’t.”
Like the other South Carolina recipients, Thornton is notable for his humility about the medal. Don’t tell him he “won” it.
“You’re a recipient. You were put in for it by your peers. It’s not like you went out and won a ball game or something,” he explains. “I don’t think I deserved mine and will never think that. I was doing what I was trained to do, and that includes keeping the faith in the guy there next to you.”
_____
Master Sgt. John F. Baker Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.)
On Nov. 5, 1966, Pfc. John F. Baker Jr., was with Company A, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry in Tay Ninh Province of Vietnam near the Cambodian border. He had seen several small actions during his tour but nothing like the battle that occurred when his company was ordered to assist another unit pinned down by the Viet Cong. When enemy fire instantly killed his company’s lead man, Baker moved to the head of the column and, with another soldier, knocked out two enemy bunkers. When the other soldier was mortally wounded, Baker had to dispatch four Viet Cong snipers before he could evacuate the fallen man. He returned to the front to lead repeated assaults against enemy positions. Moving to attack two more enemy bunkers, he and another soldier drew intense fire, and Baker was blown off his feet by an enemy grenade. He quickly recovered and single-handedly destroyed one bunker before the other soldier was wounded. Baker seized the machine gun of his fallen comrade and silenced the second bunker. He evacuated the wounded soldier, replenished his ammunition and returned to continue the fight. Before the two-hour engagement was over, Baker evacuated a total of eight soldiers and at one point raced ahead of friendly troops to kill enemy snipers.
John Baker is one good man the Marines missed.
Baker tried to enlist in the Corps but was rejected because he was too short. So, the 5-foot-2 high school gymnast from Moline, Ill., joined the Army instead. He used his athletic ability to fearlessly root out dug-in enemy positions as a “tunnel rat” and, on one particular day, saved the lives of several fellow soldiers in a fight so savage that it earned him the nation’s highest military tribute. Recommended by fellow enlisted men he fought alongside that day, he was awarded the Medal of Honor on May 1, 1968, by President Lyndon Johnson.
After the war, Baker remained in the Army, retired after 24 years as a master sergeant and then completed his working life as a computer analyst at the Veterans Administration hospital in Columbia. He now calls the capital city home and stays active talking to young people about his experiences—“The kids love hearing my stories about being a tunnel rat in Vietnam”—and about the importance of patriotism and honor and commitment.
“It’s important that young people learn that there’s more than basketball, football, stuff like that,” he said. “Sports heroes are fine, but war heroes, well, they’re important, too. The kids don’t mind hearing that.”
Baker doesn’t mind sharing. “Receiving the medal means a great deal to me. It reminds me of the friendships I had with the men and women I served with. I loved serving in the military.”
Editor’s note: Master Sgt. Baker died of a heart condition Jan. 20, 2012, at a Columbia hospital. He was 66.
_____
Capt. John J. McGinty III, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)
On July 18, 1966, a platoon with Company K, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines under the command of Staff Sgt. John James McGinty III helicoptered into a “hot” area along the Demilitarized Zone between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Their mission was to protect the withdrawal of a Marine battalion from a position that had been under attack for three days. McGinty’s unit soon came under heavy small arms, automatic weapons and mortar fire from an enemy regiment. When two of his squads became separated, McGinty charged through intense automatic weapons and mortar fire to find 20 of his men wounded and the medical corpsman killed. He reloaded ammunition magazines and weapons, led the care of his men, and, despite serious wounds to his legs and left eye, directed fire to prevent his men from being overrun. During one attack, he killed five enemies at point-blank range with his pistol and skillfully adjusted artillery and air strikes to within 50 yards of his own position leading to a rout of a far larger enemy force.
John James McGinty III had returned from Vietnam, had received a commission as a second lieutenant, and was serving as a drill instructor at Parris Island when he learned that he was to receive the Medal of Honor from President Lyndon Johnson. Later promoted to the rank of captain, McGinty retired after 35 years with the Marines, but he remains active with the military by visiting troops deployed overseas and has completed five trips to Afghanistan and Iraq.
“It can be pretty tiring but it’s interesting, especially when we get to go to places where the press usually doesn’t get to go,” he says. “And I’m very impressed with the men and women serving now. It’s tough, but they’re doing a great job. I’ve got to really hand it to the National Guard and all those units that go over there again and again.”
Like his fellow recipients, McGinty gives credit for his honor to the men next to him. “I was the head of a platoon of 32 Marines, and they’re the ones who earned it.”
Editor’s note: Capt. McGinty died Jan. 17, 2014, in Beaufort. He was 73.
_____
Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)
On May 2, 1968, the men of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, under the command of Capt. James E. Livingston, launched an assault on a Vietnamese village in Quang Tri Province. Enemy forces had seized it the night before and isolated another Marine company from the battalion. Skillfully employing screening agents, Livingston maneuvered his men 500 meters across an open rice paddy while under intense enemy fire. Although he was twice wounded by grenade fragments, he refused medical treatment until his men had destroyed more than 100 bunkers and driven the enemy from their positions, relieving the pressure on the stranded Marine company. When an enemy battalion began a counterattack, Livingston boldly maneuvered the remaining effective men of his company forward and joined forces with another unit of Marines. Wounded a third time and unable to walk, he steadfastly remained in a dangerously exposed area, deploying his men to more tenable positions and supervising the evacuation of casualties. Only when assured of the safety of his men did he allow himself to be evacuated.
After receiving the nation’s highest honor from President Richard Nixon on May 14, 1970, James Livingston went on to a remarkable 34-year military career. His third tour of Vietnam included a senior command role in the final evacuation of Saigon. He commanded the Marine Barracks in London, held top training command roles at Parris Island and developed the Desert Warfare Training Program at 29 Palms in California during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He also commanded the 6th Marines and later the Marine Forces Reserves. He became a brigadier general in 1988 and was promoted to major general in 1991.
Livingston has seen a lot of change in the armed forces and in the nation’s mindset toward their military over his long career.
“It’s a real contrast to what was the attitude 30 years ago,” he says. “There’s a much more positive attitude. It’s our most respected institution in the country.”
Now a Mount Pleasant resident, Livingston travels extensively as a consultant for defense and non-defense companies and to promote his recently published biography, Noble Warrior: The Life and Times of Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston, USMC (Ret.), Medal of Honor. But he still takes the time to meet with troops and schoolchildren.
On each visit, he carries the same message about the Medal of Honor: “It represents service and sacrifice, and as recipients, each of us is just one of the people who represent the greater commitment of all veterans in all wars,” Livingston said. “There are many, many more who have not been recognized, for a variety of reasons … including that they did not survive the fight.”
_____
Get More
For more information on the commendation, visit the website of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.
In 2004, The South Carolina State Guard Foundation published The Medal of Honor: A Commemoration of South Carolina Recipients, profiling all 37 South Carolinians, living and deceased, who had earned the Medal of Honor to that point. For more information, visit sg.sc.gov.
View the national exhibition of portraits of Medal of Honor recipients at themedal.com.
_____
Related stories
- Gamecock warrior—Medal of Honor nominee Kyle Carpenter is giving his “new 100 percent” to civilian life.
- Awarding the Medal of Honor—Military historian Dik Daso takes us behind the scenes of the June 19 Medal of Honor ceremony.
- S.C. Medal of Honor history—Learn more about the state’s deep connection to the military’s highest award for valor.
- Heroism on display—Tour the Medal of Honor Museum at Patriots Point Military Park in Mount Pleasant.