Sergeant First Class Webster Anderson served in the Army in Vietnam. He lost two legs and an arm defending his position near Tam Ky, but his resilience and bravery encouraged his men, led to victory, and earned him the Medal of Honor.

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Privates First Class Charles D. Barger and Jesse N. Funk both served in World War I as Stretcher Bearers in the U.S. Army. After hearing that two wounded officers were pinned down under heavy fire in No Man’s Land, Barger and Funk leaped into action and raced through heavy fire to save them both.

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Major Horace Seaver Carswell Jr. was tasked with piloting a surprise single-plane bombing mission against a convoy of 14+ Japanese ships. Carswell hit his targets, but his B-24 suffered severe damage in the process. Down one parachute, he ordered his men to bail out and leave him behind. He attempted to crash land, but wasn’t able to gain enough altitude and crashed into a mountainside. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his exemplary Sacrifice.

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Corporal James Allen served in the Union Army, and fought in many famous battles including Bull Run, Gettysburg, and Chancellorsville without ever seeing the inside of the hospital. During the Battle of Crampton’s Gap, Allen was separated from the rest of his division, and faced a squad of Confederates. He charged, prompting them to retreat. Allen then realized that they must think he has a squad behind them, because they’d never retreat with only one man in pursuit. Leaning into this, he hopped over a wall, landed amongst the 14 enemies, and convinced them to surrender. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for this impressive trick.

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Sergeant David Bruce Bleak served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, and was assigned to the Army Medical Service. As he and a patrol of 20 men attempted to capture Hill 499, Sergeant Bleak continuously administered aid while killing four enemies with his bare hands and one with a trench knife, protecting a fellow soldier from a grenade blast, and carrying another down the hill down to safety.

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Sergeant Jose M. Lopez was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery during the Battle of the Bulge. Carrying and operating a heavy machine gun that was meant to be manned by at least three men, Lopez moved from position to position, defending his company from the German attack. He killed over 100 enemies and is credited with being nearly solely responsible for saving his company.

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Master Sergeant Raul Perez “Roy” Benavidez spent his adolescence working a series of odd jobs in Cuero, TX before enlisting in the National Guard in 1952. He would later join the Army and earn his Green beret before being deployed to Vietnam. It was here that he earned the Medal of Honor for risking his own life to rescue wounded soldiers and recover the body of a fallen soldier and the classified information he was carrying.

You can find Benavidez’s autobiographical books about his experiences here:

Medal of Honor

The Three Wars of Roy Benavidez

Medal of Honor: One Man’s Journey From Poverty and Prejudice

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Cold, underequipped, and out positioned, Private Martinez led the way up tundra mountains through Japanese defenses on the Alaskan island of Attu. As he readied to destroy the final bunker, Martinez was killed, but turned the battle around for his fellow soldiers.

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The last man to leave his sinking ship, Rear Admiral Antrim and his sailors could only run for so long before being captured and imprisoned as POW. Faced with cruelty and brutality from guards everyday, Antrim stood up for his fellow POWs and was awarded the Medal of Honor for saving another’s life in the prison camp.

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On a raid in a Taliban compound, Master Sergeant Petry was wounded in both legs when an enemy grenade landed by his wounded comrade. Without thinking twice, Petry saved his friend by throwing the grenade back and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his self-sacrifice.

You can read Petry's Medal of Honor Citation on the National Medal of Honor Museum website.

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