Valor Tales

Philip Conran https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/04/17/should-this-airman-receive-the-medal-of-honor-for-laos-battle-a-congressman-thinks-so/ A congressman from California, Rep. Salud Carbajal (D), has introduced legislation authorizing the president to upgrade Air Force Colonel Philip Conran’s Air Force Cross to the Medal of Honor. Let’s explore what the colonel did that has garnered the Congressman’s attention. Enlisting in the Connecticut Air National Guard in 1953, Conran served as a motor pool dispatcher until receiving a commission through the ROTC program at Fordham University in 1958. Trained as a pilot he received his wings in 1960 and then was trained in flying helicopters. He was serving in Bermuda in 1962 when he was deployed for the Cuban Missile Crisis. In November 1968 he was deployed for a year to Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai AFB, Thailand where he flew CH-3 Jolly Green Giants in the 21st Special Operations Squadron. It was here, in the span o...

The US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado can lay claim to having many heroes and notable men and women among their alumni. For example, the USAFA has commissioned 403 people who later became general officers, 36 graduates became prisoners of war who were later repatriated, 39 have become astronauts, and two became combat aces. However there has only been one USAFA graduate who has been awarded the nation’s highest honor, the Medal of Honor. His name is Captain Lance Sijan. The child of Serbs who had immigrated to the US after World War I and settled in Wisconsin, he attended the Naval Academy Preparatory Course right after high school. From there he was able to secure appointment to the US Air Force Academy (USAFA). At the USAFA he played football for three of his four years, graduating in 1965. Newly commissioned a second lieutenant, Sijan was sent to pilot training and by the summer of 1967 was flying in F-4 Phantoms over North Vietnam as a first lieutenant. ...

AMERICAN AWARDS - A Brief History America, fiercely against many European military traditions, did not have a formal system for any awards or decorations for decades after its forming. In fact, they were so anti-European, that the US Navy didn’t have the rank of admiral until the Civil War (nearly 100 years after the country’s founding) because it was too Imperial. There were two Revolutionary War-era awards however. Both were awarded in exceptionally small numbers (three awards each) and neither were awarded beyond the end of the war. The oldest, and first, American award was the Fidelity Medallion. It was awarded to the soldiers who captured British Major John Andre. Andre was famously the British point of contact for Benedict Arnold (a disaffected American general who turned traitor and gave Britain intelligence in exchange for a British generalcy). Only three men of the New York Militia received the award and it was never bestowed again. Often referred to (incorrectly) as A...

Everyone who’s served in the Air Force knows of the perpetual screw up “Airman Snuffy”. Snuffy is the foul up who can’t get anything right, forgets to salute officers, and is often found slacking in their duties. He’s our version of Private Pyle or Beetle Bailey I guess you could say. So it was with some surprise that I found out there was an airman known as “Snuffy”. True to the legend that’s been passed down, he was in fact a recalcitrant screwup with a severe attitude problem. He was also the first enlisted airman to receive the Medal of Honor. Sit back for a wild ride. S/Sgt Maynard "Snuffy" Smith receives the Medal of Honor from Secretary of War Henry Stimson Maynard Smith was 31 when in 1942 he found himself before a judge for failing to pay child support. The judge gave him the choice of jail or the Army. Smith took the Army.  Already a belligerent personality, he bristled at taking orders, particularly from those several years younger than him. ...

On January 12, 2019 we lost a true American hero. A mustang officer and survivor of three wars, Colonel Joe Jackson was one of only two living Air Force Medal of Honor recipients at the time of his death. Born in 1923 in Newnan, Georgia, Jackson was fascinated by airplanes as a youth. Days after his 18th birthday, he enlisted into the Army Air Corps in March 1941 hoping to become an airplane mechanic. As the US entered the Second World War, Jackson received training as a crew chief and served aboard a B-25 Mitchell bomber. During a training flight on which the flight engineer was out sick, Jackson filled in for the missing man. During the flight an engine caught fire. The pilot didn't know how to put it out and asked for Jackson's help. Back then the pilot relied on the flight engineer to do most of the engine-related work. The pilot would typically only have throttle control, and on some airframes the engineer even ran those. Jackson's quick thinking and know...

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/04/17/should-this-airman-receive-the-medal-of-honor-for-laos-battle-a-congressman-thinks-so/ A congressman from California, Rep. Salud Carbajal (D), has introduced legislation authorizing the president to upgrade Air Force Colonel Philip Conran's Air Force Cross to the Medal of Honor. Let's explore what the colonel did that has garnered the Congressman's attention. Enlisting in the Connecticut Air National Guard in 1953, Conran served as a motor pool dispatcher until receiving a commission through the ROTC program at Fordham University in 1958. Trained as a pilot he received his wings in 1960 and then was trained in flying helicopters. He was serving in Bermuda in 1962 when he was deployed for the Cuban Missile Crisis. In November 1968 he was deployed for a year to Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai AFB, Thailand where he flew CH-3 Jolly Green Giants in the 21st Special Operations Squadron. It was here, in the...