Once again, our nation has found it fitting to award the Medal of Honor to one of our brave.  This is no empty act; after all, advised Churchill, it is courage that is the foundation for all other virtue.

I was introduced to the recipient during Christmas, 1992.  I had received the book We Were Soldiers Once … and Young by Lt. General Hal Moore and Joe Galloway as a gift from my Dad.  The book told of the profound bravery of Major Bruce Crandall at a placed in Vietnam called Ia Drang.

Crandall is not your average kind of hero if there is such a thing. In fact, he should be awarded the MOH 22 times by my count.  That's right:  Crandall flew twenty-two missions into a besieged landing zone over a 14 hour period on November 14, 1965, ferrying in much-needed ammunition, supplies, and water while evacuating the wounded.  Any person that would fly three different choppers (two were badly damaged) into a hot landing zone 22 times facing an almost certain death is a person with courage beyond measure.

Crandall blazed many trails that bleak day in November that add a richness to this decoration.  For openers, this was the first time that the U.S. used helicopters for ferrying troops into battle in a massive way. It also became the first time that the same choppers were used as air ambulances that would later be called "dust offs" for their rapid descent and departure.  History was being played out just as Crandall was showing us how courageous a person could be.

After I finished Moore's book, I located his home address in Colorado. I wrote asserting that his book had meaningfully chronicled the texture of this difficult war. After 27 years, Moore had showed us what it was to be a warrior in a place like Vietnam.

If it were not for the guiding hand of God, Moore wrote, we would have lost Ia Drang. Had that battle been lost, the war could have been over before it was really started.  God guided the U.S. to victory against a ferocious North Vietnamese attack.  In no small way, God had his hand on Major Crandall's shoulder that day. After the second chopper had been shot out from underneath him, he didn’t hesitate to stop. "They were my people down there, and they trusted in me to come and get them," Crandall simply declared.

For me, this experiment in mobile warfare took on a personal dimension.  Crandall flew a single-rotor Huey.  The Marine Corps favored a twin-rotor CH-46s that were slow and awkward, large targets for enemy rockets.  Often these birds passed on missions that meant certain death.  Soon, in the northern reaches of Vietnam Army chopper pilots would often drop from the sky as angels to scoop up wounded Marines.  There are 1,000 Marines are alive today because of courageous Army dust-offs.

Once again, I return to the nature of Crandall's heroism.  Most warriors are only called to be a true hero once or maybe twice.  An enemy position is charged and overwhelmed or warriors are pulled to safety in the face of brutal fire.  Can you imagine the guts that were mustered to fly into harm’s way 22 times?  Each time Crandall knew that he could die.  Yet what counted were those beleaguered soldiers on the ground.

Is it sufficient to have a one-day celebration of a hero like Crandall?  Whatever happened to ticker tape parades?  The last one was held in 1953 for Wilson Dean. I ask each person to take measure of this heroism.  We need to challenge ourselves to truly put "honor" into the Medal of Honor. I, for one, say that we haven't done enough.  Let us find ways to do more.