My assessment of Maj. Winters is that he is probably embarassed by this pol's grandstanding.
Ping!
Retroactive awards should not be granted on the basis of popularity or political influence.
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.
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.
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."
A local hero (he lives down the road in Hershey) as well as a national one!