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Heroes
Fewer than 3,500 Medals of Honor
have been awarded to hometown heroes from our 50 States. Few are the
cities that can claim one of these greatest of our Nation's heroes, but
no city is devoid of heroes they can claim as their own hometown heroes.
While the Medal of Honor is the pinnacle
of the military's Pyramid of Honor, each branch of service has its own
"highest award". The Distinguished Service Cross is the
Army's highest award, the Navy Cross the highest award presented
by the Navy to members of the Navy, Marines and Coast Guard, and the Air
Force Cross is that branch of service's highest award. These three
are ALSO the highest U.S. Military awards that can be bestowed upon
civilians or members of Allied, Foreign military services. In all, more
than 20,000 of these have been presented.
General George Patton, who did not
receive the Medal of Honor, often said, "I'd sell my immortal
soul for that medal (Medal of Honor)." General Patton DID
receive two awards of the Distinguished Service Cross, about which he
stated: "I would rather be a lieutenant with the Distinguished
Service Cross, that a general without one." This second tier in
the Pyramid of Honor is no small distinction.
Over the past years we have been
developing a database of the recipients of these three awards, along
with the briefly issued Marine Corps Brevet Medal (which was
considered to be on par with the Medal of Honor). As a part of that
database we have researched the home towns of the individual recipients
and have identified the residences of more than half these 20,000
heroes.
Use the links below to find the
hometown heroes of your own city. The recipients of these awards are
listed alphabetically by city or county, followed by details of which
award(s) they received and for what war or action. You can then use the
links at the bottom of the page to find their various citations.