@Smokin Joe My next door neighbor when I was a kid was a cousin of my mothers,and was on the USS Arizona when it went down. He was MAYBE a 19 year old E-3 at the time,and manned a 50 cal machine gun and was credited with shooting down a forgotten number of Japanese airplanes before the ship started sinking and he had to jump overboard and swim for shore.
He got a Silver Star for his efforts,and the US Navy is known for being stingy when it comes to awarding serious "hero badges" like that to enlisted swine.
I didn't even know this until I was over playing with his son one day,and the son invited me to go into his parents bedroom so he could show me the framed award letter and award. It was the first Silver Star I ever saw,and I will never forget it.
I was maybe 10 -12 years old at the time and didn't know diddly-squad about awards for bravery in the face of enemy fire,but even I could tell that was some serious stuff.
I have no idea why he kept it hidden in his bedroom,unless MAYBE given all that happened that day,he didn't think he really earned it compared to what some of the others did. Seems like almost all of the real heroes I have me,and I have probably met more than most people (7 years in the US Army during the VN war,and 5 years of that in Special Forces) had that opinion about their own awards. Didn't fool me,though. I clearly understood it was some serious "Hero Stuff",and was always kinda in awe of him after that.
It SEEMED like the people who had the most awards and the most impressive awards didn't like to wear them unless they had to.
My company commander on Okinawa received a Medal of Honor during the Korean War,and I saw him daily for over a year before I found that out. We had an award ceremony,and he was pretty much required to wear all his awards and decorations to hand out the awards to others.
His name was Ola Mize,in case any of you are interested,and he was genuinely one of the nicest human beings I have ever known.
To give you an example,I was a 19 year old E-4 in his company on Okie,and got drunk one night and got to wondering how the typical officers lived when off-duty,so I put on civilian clothes and went to the officers club that was located on a cliff overlooking the East China Sea. Can't remember it's name now,but they had entertainers like Sammy Davis Jr putting on shows.
Anyhow,I kinda hung around the parking lot until a couple of car loads of officers and their wives arrived and headed for the entrance,so I just mingled in amongst them and got in without being carded.
Did ok for a while,and even saw a few junior officers from my company in there ,and they just smiled at me.
Then I got drunk enough to start wondering how the senior officers lived,so I went and sat down at a table in the Senior Officers Lounge.
Didn't last long. Somebody from the company called Col Mize and told him what I was doing and where I was,and he came in and set a fresh whisky glass down in front of me,and told me to "Enjoy your last drink of the evening."
I pretty much chugged it down and got the hell OUT of there.
When I saw him in the barracks hallway the next day,he just looked at me and smiled.
Not long after that,he called me into his office and tried to talk me into going to OCS to become an officer. Told me he could arrange for me to come back to his command on Okie after graduating and he would send me off to VN with an A-Team so I could get some experience.
My extension papers got lost and I got new orders sending me back to Bragg before any of that could happen,though. So I volunteered to go to VA to get the HELL away from Bragg and back to Okie. That didn't work either because I got medi-evaced back to Bragg before my 2nd extension in VN started. Agent Orange sent me back to Bragg,and out of SF. I hated the regular army almost as much as they hated me,so I just got out.
