| CAMP VICTORY, Iraq, April 4, 2008 – He was a husband, father, soldier and leader, but today Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, the 3rd Infantry Division’s 51st Medal of Honor recipient was remembered here simply as a hero.
Task Force Marne soldiers who organized a remembrance ceremony for U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, April 4, 2008, stand in the courtyard where Smith gave his life in defense of others five years ago. For his selfless service, Smith was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2005. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jasmine Chopra
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. |
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U.S troops held a remembrance ceremony the courtyard where five years ago to the day, Smith gave his life in defense of others.
On April 4, 2003, Smith was setting up a short-term enemy prisoner of war holding area near the Baghdad International Airport when his unit was attacked by enemy soldiers.
Outnumbered, with wounded soldiers and damaged vehicles, Smith told his men to get back, as he manned a .50-caliber machine gun from the exposed turret of an armored personnel carrier damaged by rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. He fired at the enemy and unleashed some 300 rounds allowing his other soldiers to reorganize and mount an attack. Smith and his men defeated the enemy. During the attack Smith fell mortally wounded.
A disciplined, no-nonsense platoon sergeant with the division’s Company B, 11th Engineer Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, Smith received the nation’s highest award for bravery in 2005.
“He was a soldier who took care of soldiers … he lost his life doing it,” said Brig. Gen. William Grimsley, who commanded the 1st Brigade Combat Team at the time of Smith’s death.
Now the deputy commander of the 4th Infantry Division, Grimsley recommended Smith for the Medal of Honor. He was one of several leaders who knew Smith and took time out from operations today in order to attend the ceremony.
In 2003, Capt. Christopher Doerr, of the 3rd Infantry Division’s Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Special Troops Battalion, was a 23-year-old brand-new second lieutenant.
“I’ll always treasure the fact I got to serve with and know Sgt. 1st Class Smith,” Doerr said.
He admired Smith’s expertise, precision and dedication to mission accomplishment.
“He was an expert engineer, the best in the battalion,” Doerr said. “The way he motivated his soldiers, they didn’t necessarily like him, he wasn’t their friend, but he made them train to standard.
“It all makes sense now, why he pushed us, why we did the things we did. Now we are here because of that,” Doerr said.
Smith had been in combat when he was a young private first class in Desert Storm. In Kuwait, just days before invading Iraq, Doerr asked Smith to tell him what war was going to be like.
“He said, ‘war is hell,’ and he showed me that first hand,” Doerr said. “He laid it all on the line and that was not a fluke … he was concerned for the safety of his men and others and he put that above his own personal safety, and I think you’ve got to say he’s a hero for that.”
More than 200 people attended the remembrance ceremony, including Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, commander of Multi-National Corps – Iraq, who in 2003 was the deputy commander for maneuver for the 3rd Infantry Division.
Large-scale pictures showed Sgt. 1st Class Smith in desert camouflage uniform days before the battle. Diagrams, mounted on an armored personnel carrier like the one Smith used, detailed his heroic action. Visible from the courtyard was the bullet-riddled tower that the enemy had fought for but failed to seize.
A bugler played Taps and, after the ceremony, soldiers walked the site and reflected on the sacrifice he had made for our country.
(U.S. Army Sgt. Sgt. Jasmine Chopra is assigned to the Multinational Division - Center Public Affairs Office.)
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My recollection was correct - here’s excerpts from a long 2005 article in the Christian Science Monitor:
.....The [U.S] personnel carrier that had barged through the gate had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, and the three soldiers inside had been wounded. What’s more, a Bradley fighting vehicle brought in at the beginning of the firefight was now out of ammunition....
Not only were the Guards occupying Smith and his men outside the broken gate, but they had also taken a tower that overlooked the courtyard and the road, pinning down the remainder of the troops from the high ground.
..... The consequences were dire. If Smith’s troops broke, the Iraqi troops would be able to move potentially unimpeded from the courtyard gate all the way to a nearby command center, flanking a mortar unit, and overrunning a station that held both the wounded and several embedded journalists......
.... At that moment, as Medrano was lifting one of the wounded to safety, he glanced up at Smith, who was now manning the gun atop the personnel carrier. “We made eye contact, and he just waved me off,” says Medrano. “He was telling me to take care of these people.”
With the help of several other soldiers, Smith backed the vehicle into the courtyard so that he could cover both the tower and the gate. For perhaps 10 minutes, he fired more than 300 rounds to prevent the Iraqi forces from spilling through the bulldozer-made hole in the wall and on to the command center.
“Not all soldiers would jump on top of a vehicle that has already gotten hit while bloody people are being taken out of it,” says Medrano. “He did it because he knew if he didn’t, we would get slaughtered.”
Led by another sergeant, Medrano and two other soldiers used Smith’s covering fire to move cautiously to the base of the tower, where they took out the Iraqi soldiers. But by that time, Smith’s gun, too, had fallen silent. He had been shot in the head, the only US fatality in the firefight.....
President Bush presented the Medal of Honor to Smith’s son, David. To Colonel Grimsley, it is a medal that speaks not only of the heroics of one man, but of a whole army: “I would tell you that there are thousands of Sergeant Smiths out there.”
Even so, he acknowledges, Smith - and his act of valor - were indeed uncommon. “You see 100 people, and certain people stand out,” says Grimsley. “Certainly, he was a guy deeply devoted to his soldiers and his profession.... It was an incredibly selfless act of service.”
