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President Bush will give 11-year-old David Smith his father's Medal of Honor today, the two-year anniversary of his death in Iraq. HOLIDAY - David Smith was chatting about his father, and the subject turned to cookies. When there was only one left, David said, his dad always took it. "Come on, that's not fair," David would protest. "Life," Paul Smith would playfully reply, "is not fair." So they would tussle, David vs. Dad. Over cookies. Over the good seat on the couch. That's just the way the Smith household worked, until April 4, 2003. Since that day, David gets to...

This is the Army's website to honor SFC Smith. They haven't got the official citation posted as I type this, but it says that it will be posted on 4 April after the presentation. There are many links within this website and all are very good. I'd say a "must see" link is the "Video" link. There are a number of them.

Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith will receive the Medal of Honor posthumously during a White House ceremony April 4, 2005. The official citation will be made available after the White House Presentation. Baghdad Airport, April 4, 2003. On April 4, 2003, the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, attacked to seize Objective Lions, the Baghdad International Airport. As part of the Brigade scheme of maneuver, Task Force 2-7 Infantry was tasked to establish a blocking position against a brigade-sized counterattack on the main entrance to the airfield. Task Force 2-7 had been fighting for three consecutive days...

Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith wrote a letter to his mother days before his Army unit crossed into Iraq as part of the U.S. invasion. His words were chilling in their foreshadowing: "There are two ways to come home, stepping off the plane or being carried off the plane. It doesn't matter how I come home, because I am prepared to give all that I am to ensure that all my boys make it home." He saved the letter on his laptop but never mailed it. Smith was killed on April 4, 2003, firing a .50-caliber machine gun to...

ASHINGTON, March 29 - Sgt. First Class Paul R. Smith, killed nearly two years ago defending his vastly outnumbered Army unit in a fierce battle with elite Iraqi troops for control of Baghdad's airport, will receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award, administration officials said Tuesday.No soldier who served in Afghanistan or Iraq after the Sept. 11 attacks has yet received the medal. The last conflict to produce a Medal of Honor recipient was in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993; two soldiers were awarded the medal posthumously for actions there, later depicted in the movie "Black Hawk Down."Sergeant...

LEADERSHIP: Medal of Honor Awarded for Iraq Action   October 23, 2003: In today's world, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that one man can make a difference. Paul Ray Smith is on the way to becoming the first serviceman to receive the Medal of Honor since MSG Gary Gordon and SFC Randall Shughart fought their last battle in Mogadishu on October 3, 1993.  During Operation Iraqi Freedom, SFC (Sergeant First Class) Smith was a platoon sergeant/acting platoon leader in the 1st Brigade's B Company, 11th Engineer Battalion attached to the 2-7 Task Force. Bravo Company was in...

It was in the third week of the Iraq war, as U.S. troops barreled toward Baghdad, that Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith's band of combat engineers found themselves on the wrong end of 10-to-1 odds. In a walled courtyard not far from Baghdad's airport, Smith and his 15 lightly armed soldiers were trying to hold off 100 Special Republican Guard fighters wielding rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and AK-47 assault rifles. When wounds downed the U.S. crew of the armored vehicle bearing the Americans' sole heavy machine gun, Smith scrambled into the breach. In the gunner's hatch of that personnel carrier, with...

The GIs were dirty, mosquito-bitten, fatigued, homesick. They had been on the road almost constantly for two weeks. Many had not slept in days. Smith talks on two radios at once in his Humvee in Iraq. The picture was taken near the Euphrates, a few days before his death. At dawn on April 4, they arrived at Saddam International Airport to the sound of sporadic gunfire and the acrid smell of distant explosions. Breakfast was a mushy, prepackaged concoction the Army optimistically calls "pasta with vegetables." Still, the mood was upbeat. Reaching the airport meant the war was almost over....

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A Fort Stewart, Ga., soldier credited with saving dozens of lives by beating back an Iraqi attack before he was killed will receive the first Medal of Honor awarded since 1993, according to the officer who nominated him. Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, 33, of the Tampa Bay area, was killed in action when his outnumbered unit was attacked by Iraqi forces at the Baghdad airport on April 4, 2003. Lt. Col. Thomas Smith on Tuesday notified the soldier's wife, Birgit, that President Bush would present the nation's highest award to her and their children,...

Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, who spent his boyhood in Tampa, became a man in the Army and died outside Baghdad defending his outnumbered soldiers from an Iraqi attack, will receive America's highest award for bravery. President Bush will present the Medal of Honor to Smith's wife, Birgit, and their children Jessica, 18, and David, 10, at a ceremony at the White House, possibly in March. The official announcement will come soon, but the Pentagon called Mrs. Smith with the news Tuesday afternoon. "We had faith he was going to get it," Mrs. Smith said from her home in...

HOLIDAY, Fla. -- Birgit Smith does not remember the exact date of her husband's last telephone call. She knows it was in March of last year, just a few days before the start of the war in Iraq. But she clearly remembers what she said when Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith, her husband of 11 years, called from Kuwait. A good Army wife who was used to frequent separation and infrequent communication, Birgit said the important things first. "I love you, I love you, I love you. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you," she told the man...

Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith gave his life behind the trigger of a .50-caliber machine gun, firing to save the lives of his fellow soldiers. Now, the 3rd Infantry Division wants the President to award him the Medal of Honor. The instructions were clear for Pfc. Jonathan Seaman as he hunkered inside the driver's hatch of an armored personnel carrier. When the shooting stopped, hand up a fresh ammo can. Otherwise, Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith told Seaman, stay down. An Iraqi Fedayeen unit of nearly 100 fighters swarmed the area. Bullets and grenades were flying. In the gunner's hatch,...

Army dedicates Simulation Center for fallen Soldier December 9, 2003 Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith cuts the lock of a suspected ammunition storage facility in central Iraq. SGT Craig Zentkovich The Army’s former Simulation & Training Technology Center in Orlando, Fla., was renamed Nov. 7 in honor of Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, a Floridian who lost his life in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Smith was killed in battle April 4. His unit, the 11th Engineer Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, was assigned the task of establishing an enemy prisoner of war holding area and was aggressively counter-attacked by a...

A Profile in Valor from Operation Iraqi Freedom Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.comWednesday, Oct. 8, 2003Washington, D.C. -- One of the highlights of the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting at the New Washington Convention Center (Oct. 6-8) was the cadre of young decorated heroes fresh back from the fighting in Iraq who were invited to participate in this year’s events. When NewsMax caught up with a couple of them, however, it wasn’t their own war stories that flowed, but the tale of valor of one of their own -- Sergeant First Class Paul Smith, age 33, Bravo Company, 11th Engineer...

Birgit Smith's husband, Paul, who was killed in Iraq, may get the Medal of Honor. "It doesn't bring my husband back," she said. HOLIDAY, Fla. — It was back on April 4 when Birgit Smith last wrote her husband, Sgt. First Class Paul Ray Smith. "Life without you here is just not the same," she wrote in a tight, neat cursive.She printed out an envelope and stamped it. He was already dead.Two men in uniform came to the door that night, another sergeant and a chaplain. Of course, she knew what the visit meant, but the timing seemed all...

Fallen hero's bike will help educate daughter By:Patrick Donahue , Executive editor 06/09/2003 Paul Ray Smith's Harley-Davidson waits for a new owner. He only got to ride it a few times, his sister Lisa DeVane said. Now, she's raffling it off to help pay for the college bills Smith's daughter Jessica will incur in a few years. Smith, a sergeant first class in the 3rd Infantry Division's 11th Engineer Battalion, was killed in action at the Baghdad Airport on April 4. "Paul only had the bike, not even a year," DeVane said. "Jessica is getting ready to go off to...

Make a DONATION OR PURCHASE A RAFFLE TICKET for the "Paul Ray Smith Assistance Fund". SFC Smith was a native of El Paso, TX, and lived in Hinesville for the past four years, having moved here from Germany, Born Sept 24, 1969, he was raised in the Tampa, FL., area, where he was a 1989 graduate of Tampa Vo Tech. After high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he began his 13 year career. During his service, he received many awards, ribbons, and medals, five Army Commendation Medals, six Army Achievement Medals, one Kuwait Liberation Medal, one NATO...

The word "hero" is tossed around so casually these days that it has almost lost its meaning. Then comes the story of Army Sgt. Paul Smith, who reminds us what a real hero is. The 33-year-old soldier from Tampa was killed April 4 after valiantly fending off an Iraqi assault on his command post.

Names of the four US Marines who died in yesterday's helicopter crash: Maj. Jay Thomas Aubin, 36, of Waterville, Maine Capt. Ryan Anthony Beaupre, 30, of Bloomington, Ill. Cpl. Brian Matthew Kennedy, 25, of Houston, Texas Staff Sgt. Kendall Damon Watersbey, 29, of Baltimore, Md. The Pentagon has just released the names of two more US Marines who were killed in Iraq. I'll post as soon as I find that.