Posted on 06/07/2005 5:23:37 AM PDT by Born Conservative
WASHINGTON (AP) — Richard Winters received the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism on D-Day, along with accolades in the book, "Band of Brothers."
Now, 61 years later, Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., is pushing for the retired Army major from Hershey, Pa., to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest medal for valor in combat.
Weldon announced Monday during a D-Day observation service in Folsom, Pa., he plans to file legislation that would upgrade Winters' Distinguished Service Cross — the second highest honor — to the Medal of Honor.
This is the second attempt to obtain the medal for Winters, 87. Last year, the Army turned down a similar request.
The Medal of Honor is awarded only to the "bravest of the brave," according to the Army Web site.
Winters first served as commander of Company E of the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, and later as its battalion commander. The unit was profiled in the Stephen Ambrose book "Band of Brothers," later turned into an HBO miniseries.
He was recommended for a Medal of Honor because of his actions on Utah Beach on June 6, 1944, but instead received the Distinguished Service Cross. That day, he and 12 of his men killed German troops, took their maps and captured four enemy cannons, Winters said in a 2003 interview.
"His men destroyed those guns during a vicious engagement," Weldon said, adding that the act saved the lives of thousands of Allied troops.
Winters was unable to attend the ceremony on Monday because he was in ill health, according to Weldon's office.
Many of the men who served under Winters have lobbied for him to receive the highest medal even though he has not pushed for it, said Larry Alexander, who wrote a book on Winters.
"The guys really appreciated the job he did. He didn't risk lives unnecessarily," Alexander said.
Lt. Col. Kevin Arata, public affairs officer for the Army Human Resources Command, said Winters' case was reviewed by Les Brownlee, then acting secretary of the Army.
"After careful consideration, it was determined that Maj. Winters earned the correct award for his valor," Arata said.
Since the decoration was created in 1861, more than 3,400 Medals of Honor have been awarded.
My assessment of Maj. Winters is that he is probably embarassed by this pol's grandstanding.
sad to hear he's not doing well. I saw him on an undated interview on the history channel Sunday night and he didn't look good in comparision to interviews from a couple years ago.
Ping!
Retroactive awards should not be granted on the basis of popularity or political influence.
I agree with you. He is an amazing person. Thank God for men like him.
I would tend to agree. He seems to be a soft-spoken, low key guy who would not welcome the distraction.
I don't intend to downplay this man's actions, but can you imagine all of the untold stories of men who have done even greater things?
We live in the most awesome country ever. Those men who stormed Normandy were the cream of the crop. Nothing like that has ever occurred.
He is my #1 hero. I strive to be like him at all times.
His plan for the assault of the 4 guns on D-dDay is now textbook material at USMA. How many other commanders can sat that.
And the world is a better place for it.
There's no doubt that Major Winters fits that description--he doesn't need the MoH to prove it. And from what I seen and heard of the man, I don't think he'd want it either.
I would agree. I've watched the Band of Brothers several times including the interviews with Winters and he comes off as very modest in describing his actions. He above all knows what he and others did.
There is one certainty. Winters is a great American and should be remembered for his forthright determination to do his job.
He was chosen but there are many others with similar stories.
The whole invasion was amazing. If you haven't seen band of brothers, you really need to. It may be 10 hours, but it is an investment of time, not a waste. on a 1-10 scale, Private Ryan is an 8 and Band is a 10.
A Jewish War Hero Fights for Justice
Barry Farber
Monday, Feb. 5, 2001
At no point in my experience as a journalist, which I guess began officially upon graduation from college in 1952, would I have dared tell my readers, "This story has a lot of necessary detail I don't feel like fooling with, but, hey, I'll give you the title of a book that has everything I'm going to leave out!"
I have no hesitation, however, at doing precisely that right now in guiding readers not to a book, but to a Web site.
I've got a story to tell. It's a war story that sounds unbelievable. It's about an American soldier in World War II who killed an unbelievable number of enemy troops in an unbelievable way, exhibiting unbelievable heroism and being denied the Medal of Honor for an unbelievable reason.
Well, maybe the reason merely SHOULD be unbelievable. He happens to be Jewish.
Too many unbelievable stories are ruined by oververification. Not this one. The more skeptics investigate, the quicker they become ex-skeptics.
And, by the way, after his near-miraculous survival the same soldier performed another feat on another battlefield that by itself would also have handed any Christian soldier the Medal of Honor.
You may call me lazy. I call myself lean. I'm not going to have this tale sink under the weight of details such as names, places, dates, ranks, military units' names and numbers, latitudes and longitudes, weapons used, and red-tape way stations on the bureaucratic road to bigotry and injustice. It's all there, bull-proof and pig-tight, including photographs and even maps, at www.rubitsky.com, which, for some happy reason, jumps onto my screen faster than any other Web site in my Internet experience.
Frown, purist; go ahead and frown. The 21st century is here. I'm going to use it. I'll give you the tale. For details go to www.rubitsky.com.
David Rubitsky is a career vet, now old and ill, who served America in the Army, the Navy, and even the Merchant Marine. On New Guinea during the war he was ordered to string communications wire to a bunker in a swamp that had been built by the Japanese and fell into American hands. His buddies who accompanied him to the bunker saw FOUR COLUMNS of Japanese troops converging on their position. They wisely decided to retreat to their main force position.
David Rubitsky refused to retreat. He asked them to leave their weapons with him. He told them he intended to try to defend the bunker by himself.
With a grab-bag assortment of machine-gun ammunition, M-1 rifle bullets and hand grenades, Rubitsky opened fire. The ensuing battle lasted 21 hours, during which the Japanese homed in on the bunker with artillery and mortars, and Rubitsky wound up hit and hurt and bleeding from places he didn't realize you could bleed from. But when the fire ceased and his American buddies advanced upon the scene they found BETWEEN 500 and 600 JAPANESE TROOPS DEAD!
Who ever heard of such a thing?
The American officers – you'll read their names on the Web site – put Rubitsky in for the Medal of Honor. They were told by a senior officer, however, "We don't give the Medal of Honor to Jews!" Later in the war, during the battle for the Philippine island of Leyte, Rubitsky singlehandedly knocked out a dozen or so Japanese machine-gun nests. An American officer knew all about it. He did nothing. On his deathbed he voiced his regret for not having put Rubitsky in for America's highest military decoration. His wife's affadavit is on the Web site.
For years Rubitsky couldn't have cared less about whether or not his exploits were duly recognized by the Army. Don't be surprised. Those were the years in which those who scored spectacular touchdowns in football refrained from pyrotechnic gymnastics and merely handed the ball to the nearest official and quickly melted with the dignity of a Libyan camel into the ranks of their teammates.
Now, in declining health, Rubitsky recognizes the importance of trying to have some sense of fairness descend upon his personal history. Why should the modesty that was the fashion of the 1940s abort all official knowledge and memory of one of the most spectacular one-man feats of modern warfare? Excuse me, TWO of the most spectacular feats of modern warfare.
And what does David Rubitsky in Wisconsin get for his quiet effort to achieve justice by having the truth recognized? No, not just anti-Semitic hate mail; he gets DEATH THREATS!
While David Rubitsky was in the jungles of New Guinea performing his unprecedented (I think I was more on target when I said "unbelievable") actions I was an early teen-ager in North Carolina collecting scrap iron and tinfoil for the war effort.
And being Jewish, like Rubitsky, I had to smile gamely when the vastly-less-sensitive-than-today's population made snide jokes about Jews in the military finding their way to safe positions in the "Quartermaster Corps" – you know; clothes, supplies, things Jews were good at – while leaving the fighting to others.
To me the most impressive thing about the Rubitsky saga is not the unbelievable toll (500 to 600!) Japanese troops he helped die for the emperor.
It's what David Rubitsky said when his incredulous military superiors asked him why he did such a damn-fool thing as stay behind all alone in a jungle bunker under attack by four columns of Japanese infantry.
"I got tired," said Rubitsky, "of hearing Jews don't fight."
Dick Winters, the big brother to the Band of Brothers. A great American hero.
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