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Iraqi War Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient
Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith, US Army
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.
President Bush Presents Medal of Honor to Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith
Operation Iraqi Freedom Medal of Honor recipient now in Pentagon Hall of Heroes
First Medal of Honor to be awarded in Operation Iraqi Freedom
Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith's family will receive the first Medal of Honor awarded in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Here, Smith is shown in the field during the war in Iraq.
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, March 30, 2005) -- The White House announced March 29 that President George W. Bush will honor Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith by presenting his family the Medal of Honor on April 4, the second anniversary of his courageous actions during the Battle of Baghdad Airport.
Smith is the first to receive the militarys highest award for actions in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom .
In action near the Baghdad Airport on April 4, 2003, Smith, a Soldier in Company B, 11th Engineer Battalion, working with units of the 3rd Infantry Division, was tasked to build a compound to hold enemy prisoners, when his small force came under attack by more than 100 enemies.
Smith threw two grenades and fired rocket launchers at the enemy before manning a .50-caliber machine gun on an M-113 Armored Personnel Carrier to protect his troops. While engaging an enemy attacking from three sides, Smith fired more than 300 rounds from the machinegun before being killed.
He prevented the enemy from overtaking his units position, protected his Task Forces flank, and defended the lives of more than 100 Soldiers, according to his award citation.
Smith was serving as a platoon sergeant in Bravo Company, 11th Engineer Battalion, Task Force 2-7, 3rd Infantry Division. He had been serving in the Army since October 1989.
For more information about Smith, including detailed accounts of his action, see other stories on the Army News Service Web site at www.army.mil/arnews or visit the special tribute Web site at http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/ .
Iraq hero joins hallowed group
President Bush will present America's top award for bravery to the family of the sergeant who died defending his soldiers. By Alex Leary, Times Staff Writer
Published February 2, 2005
Birgit Smith sits with her children David, 10, and Jessica, 18, at her home in Holiday after learning her husband will receive the Medal of Honor. [Times photo: Brendan Fitterer]
THE LAST FULL
MEASURE OF DEVOTION
For a multimedia report on the story of Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, published as a special section in the Times last year, click here.
Sgt. Paul Smith (right) is the first soldier from the Iraqi War to get the medal, which hadn't been awarded since 1993.
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, "but the phone call was shocking. It was overwhelming. My heart was racing, and I got sweaty hands. I yelled, "Oh, yes!' ... I'm still all shaky.
"People know what's he's done ... people know that to get a Medal of Honor you have to be a special person or do something really great."
What Paul Smith did on April 4, 2003, was climb aboard an armored vehicle and, manning a heavy machine gun, take it upon himself to cover the withdrawal of his men from a suddenly vulnerable position. Smith was fatally wounded by Iraqi fire , the only American to die in the engagement.
"I'm in bittersweet tears," said Smith's mother, Janice Pvirre. "The medal isn't going to bring him back. ... It makes me sad that all these other soldiers have died. They are all heroes."
With the medal, Smith joins a most hallowed society.
Since the Civil War, just 3,439 men (and one woman ) have received the Medal of Honor. It recognizes only the most extreme examples of bravery - those "above and beyond the call of duty."
That oft-heard phrase has a specific meaning: The medal cannot be given to those who act under orders, no matter how heroic their actions. Indeed, according to Library of Congress defense expert David F. Burrelli, it must be "the type of deed which, if he had not done it, would not subject him to any justified criticism."
From World War II on, most of the men who received the medal died in the action that led to their nomination. There are but 129 living recipients.
Smith is the first soldier from the Iraq war to receive the medal, which had not previously been awarded since 1993. In that year, two Army Special Services sergeants were killed in Somalia in an action described in the bestselling book Black Hawk Down.
The officer who called Birgit Smith on Tuesday nominated her husband for the medal.
Lt. Col. Thomas Smith (no relation) sent in his recommendation in May 2003, beginning a process that involved reviews at 12 levels of the military chain of command before reaching the White House. On Tuesday, Lt. Col. Smith expressed satisfaction that the wait was over, and great admiration for his former subordinate.
In the Army, he said, you hear about men who won the Medal of Honor. "You think they are myths when you read about them. It's almost movielike. You just don't think you'd ever meet someone like that."
Paul Smith, he said, was not a "soft soldier" who suddenly got tough under fire. "This was a guy whose whole life experience seemed building toward putting him in the position where he could do something like this. He was demanding on his soldiers all the time and was a stickler for all the things we try to enforce. It's just an amazing story."
Lt. Col. Smith commanded the 11th Engineer Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, during the American attack on Iraq, which began March 20, 2003. On the morning of April 4, the engineers found themselves manning a roadblock not far from Baghdad International Airport.
A call went out for a place to put some Iraqi prisoners.
Sgt. Smith volunteered to create a holding pen inside a walled courtyard. Soon, Iraqi soldiers, numbering perhaps 100, opened fire on Smith's position. Smith was accompanied by 16 men.
Smith called for a Bradley, a tank-like vehicle with a rapid fire cannon. It arrived and opened up on the Iraqis. The enemy could not advance so long as the Bradley was in position. But then, in a move that baffled and angered Smith's men, the Bradley left.
Smith's men, some of whom were wounded, were suddenly vulnerable.
Smith could have justifiably ordered his men to withdraw. Lt. Col. Smith believes Sgt. Smith rejected that option, thinking that abandoning the courtyard would jeopardize about 100 GIs outside - including medics at an aid station.
Sgt. Smith manned a 50-caliber machine gun atop an abandoned armored personnel carrier and fought off the Iraqis, going through several boxes of ammunition fed to him by 21-year-old Pvt. Michael Seaman. As the battle wound down, Smith was hit in the head. He died before he could be evacuated from the scene. He was 33.
The Times published a lengthy account of the battle, and Smith's life in January 2004. It can be seen at www.sptimes.com/paulsmith
Sgt. Matthew Keller was one of the men who fought with Smith in the courtyard. "He put himself in front of his soldiers that day and we survived because of his actions," Keller said Tuesday from Fort Stewart in Georgia. "He was thinking my men are in trouble and I'm going to do what is necessary to help them. He didn't care about his own safety."
Some of the men who fought alongside Smith were sent back to Iraq last month. Keller, 26, is scheduled to return Feb. 15, but was scrambling Tuesday to delay his deployment to attend the medal ceremony in Washington.
"I want to be there to support the family and show thanks for what Sgt. Smith did," Keller said.
Mrs. Smith moved to Holiday after her husband's death, to be near his parents. Her daughter, Jessica, recently moved out on her own and is thinking about going to college. Son David is a fifth-grader at Sunray Elementary School in Holiday.
"From the beginning (David) didn't show much feelings, keeping to himself," Mrs. Smith said. "He thinks if he brings it up it will make me sad. He's trying to be the strong one. The day Paul left for Iraq he told David, "You're the man in the house now.'
"Paul is not forgotten," she said. "He's part of history now. It makes me feel proud, so honored that I was allowed to be part of Paul's life. Even today he's probably laughing at all of us, saying "You're making way too big a deal out of me.'
"He did what he had to do to protect his men, not to get a medal." THE LAST FULL MEASURE OF DEVOTION
First Medal of Honor flag to be presented
By Eric W Cramer
The new Medal of Honor flag will be presented to the Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith's family. It's field replicates the pattern of stars found on the Medal of Honor.
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, March 29, 2005) -- When Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smiths family receives his Medal of Honor, they will receive a new item that will be given to all future recipients of the medal a Medal of Honor flag.
The flag consists of a field of blue, with 13 stars arranged in the same formation that the stars appear on the Medal of Honor ribbon. It is fringed with gold.
The design was the brainchild of Sarah LeClerc of the U.S. Army Institute of Heraldry. A panel of eight members made of representatives from each Service (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard), one Office of Secretary Defense staff, one historian and one representative from the Medal of Honor Society was formed to review and evaluate all designs submitted and make a final recommendation to the Principal Deputy to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.
Several of us in the Creative Section worked on the design, LeClerc said. I wanted to the simplicity of the 13 stars on a blue field.
LeClerc said her initial design also contained a canton, similar to the canton containing the stars on the U.S. national flag. On her original design, the canton of red and white stripes, contained the word valor as it appears on the Medal of Honor. The committee asked if the canton could be removed.
They felt the design was better without the canton. We said that as it is an Army design, we can change it however you want, and so we removed it, said Pam Madigan an industrial specialist with the Institute of Heraldry.
A law created in October 2002, called for the creation of the flag, and the institute solicited designs via an announcement in the Federal Registry, Madigan said.
It didnt take long for the committee to make a selection. The meeting only lasted four hours, and they asked me if we could remove the canton. They decided to go with Sarahs ribbon design, with gold fringe, Madigan said.
Prepping for war, soldiers of B Company, 11th Engineer Battalion pose for a group picture in Kuwait. They spent about two months in Kuwait, then entered Iraq on March 20. Paul Smith is seen in the back row center, wearing sunglasses. Photo courtesy Brian Borkowski
Paul Ray Smith and Birgit on their wedding day, Jan. 24, 1992. Denmark required less paperwork than did Germany so they married there. Photo courtesy of Birgit Smith
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Slain Sergeant to get Medal of Honor
By ERIC SCHMITT
THE NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON -- Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith, who was killed nearly two years ago defending his vastly outnumbered Army unit in a 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 yesterday.
No soldier who served in Afghanistan or Iraq after the Sept. 11 attacks has 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."
Smith, 33, led a defense of a compound next to the airport against a much larger force of Special Republican Guard troops, manning a heavy machine gun, repeatedly firing and reloading three times before he was mortally wounded. Fellow soldiers said his actions killed 20 to 50 Iraqis, allowed wounded American soldiers to be evacuated and saved an aid station and perhaps 100 lives.
Smith's "extraordinary heroism and uncommon valor without regard to his own life in order to save others are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service," a draft of the medal citation says.
President Bush will present the award to Smith's widow and children at a White House ceremony on Monday, the second anniversary of the airport battle and the soldier's death.
The story of Paul Ray Smith is that of an ordinary recruit from Tampa, Fla., who fresh out of high school joined the Army not out of patriotism but for a steady job, and who 15 years later, as a battle-hardened platoon sergeant, was hurled into an extraordinary test, for which he paid the ultimate price.
More than 1 million military men and women have served in Afghanistan or Iraq since 2001. But Smith is the only one whose actions earned an award nomination that has reached this point after wending its way through more than a dozen levels of military and presidential reviews over the last two years.
Since the medal was created in the Civil War , there have been 3,440 recipients, but only 842 since World War II, when the requirements were tightened. There are 125 living recipients of the award, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society in Mount Pleasant, S.C.
Most recipients have been unsung soldiers who acted valiantly in moments of extraordinary pressure. More celebrated recipients include William F. Cody -- Buffalo Bill -- for gallantry as a scout; Theodore Roosevelt , for his charge up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War ; and 2nd Lt. Audie Murphy , for heroics in World War II. March 29, 2005
Soldier to be awarded Medal of Honor
By Matthew Cox
Times staff writer
 Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith. Sgt. Craig Zentkovich / Army photo
The Army announced Tuesday Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith will be the first soldier from Operation Iraqi Freedom to receive nations highest award for valor the Medal of Honor.
In an April 4 ceremony at the White House, President Bush will present the Medal of Honor to Smiths wife, Birgit, his 11-year-old-son, David, and his 18-year-old daughter, Jessica. The ceremony will mark the two-year-anniversary of the day Smith died while leading a counter-attack against a much larger Iraqi force.
Smiths unit, 2nd platoon, B Company, 11th Engineer Battalion, had been ordered to set up a temporary prisoner of war holding facility during 3rd Infantry Divisions seizure of Saddam International Airport.
When the unit moved into a courtyard, an enemy force that eventually grew to 100 Iraqi soldiers attacked with mortars, automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades.
At the height of the battle, Smith ordered one soldier to back a damaged M113 armored personnel carrier into the courtyard between the enemy and members of his unit.
The Medal of Honor citation described the scene:
Knowing the APCs .50-Cal. machinegun was the largest weapon between the enemy and the friendly position, Sgt. 1st Class Smith immediately assumed the track commanders position behind the weapon, and told a soldier who accompanied him to feed me ammunition whenever you hear the gun get quiet. Sgt. 1st Class Smith fired on the advancing enemy from the unprotected position atop the APC and expended at least three boxes of ammunition before being mortally wounded by enemy fire.
The enemy attack was defeated. Sgt. 1st Class Smiths actions saved the lives of at least 100 soldiers and resulted in an estimated 20-50 enemy soldiers killed.
His actions inspired his platoon, his Company, the 11th Engineer Battalion and Task Force 2-7 Infantry.
His wife, Birgit, said she is thrilled and humbled that her husband will receive such a prestigious award, but also that his name will become part of history.
Paul is not a statistic; his name will live on forever, said the 38-year-old during a telephone interview from her Holiday, Fla., home.
Birgit added that she never was surprised by her husbands sacrifice.
Paul loved his country, she said. He loved the Army, and he loved his soldiers.
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