My Great Uncle PFC John D. Magrath was in 10th Mountain Division of the 85th Infantry, U.S Army in the Castel d' Aiano in Italy. On the 14th April 1945 he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

When his company was pinned down by heavy artillery, mortar, and small arms fire, near Castel d'Aiano, Italy. Volunteering to act as a scout, armed with only a rifle, he charged headlong into withering fire, killing 2 Germans and wounding 3 in order to capture a machinegun. Carrying this enemy weapon across an open field through heavy fire, he neutralized 2 more machinegun nests; he then circled behind 4 other Germans, killing them with a burst as they were firing on his company. Spotting another dangerous enemy position to this right, he knelt with the machinegun in his arms and exchanged fire with the Germans until he had killed 2 and wounded 3. The enemy now poured increased mortar and artillery fire on the company's newly won position. John fearlessly volunteered again to brave the shelling in order to collect a report of casualties. Heroically carrying out this task, he made the supreme sacrifice.

When my grandfather told me about this I was amazed and felt so proud about what my Great Uncle had done for his Country.

Here is a link to a picture of his grave my father took and has been posted on the home of heroes website:

http://www.homeofheroes.com/gravesites/states/images_go/magrath_john2.jpg

If you want more information on his story then please use this link to the History of the Tenth Mountain Division:

http://www.drum.army.mil/sites/about/hist-10mtn.asp

Stuff like this makes you wonder, how many men did a deed worthy of a medal of honor but never got one (even after they were dead) for an number of different reasons.

And about your great uncle, cheers for posting this about him.

Thats okay

You are right, alot of soldiers deeds have not been given the recognisation they deserve.

Now that was a man. A REAL man. A hero.
And men like that must NEVER be forgotten.

Men who, by their sacrifice, have shown the rest of us a better way to live.
One of courage, of honour, of duty.

His example needs to be held high so men of all nations can learn from it; be inspired by it.

And while those were extraordinary times, it was ordinary men who discovered that within each of us is the potential for great deeds.

Maybe the world would be a better place if we all stopped a moment and thought about men like him. And then tried to find, and make positive use of, that potential within us all.

Lest We Forget.

quote:

Originally posted by DarkAutumn:
Maybe the world would be a better place if we all stopped a moment and thought about men like him. And then tried to find, and make positive use of, that potential within us all.

Lest We Forget.

Thank you for your words of wisdom Dark Autumn and I appreciate the fact that you took the time to write that about my Great Uncle.

I'm sure that we can all learn from our history that at times mankind can be the most selfish and evil creature that ever walked this planet, but nether the less their is still hope within us that one day, all of that will all change. My Great Uncle fought and died for an ideal, the ideal of freedom. Which he so believed in that he gave his own life. We must treasure our freedom and make the most of our lives and maybe, just maybe we can find a way down the path of riotousness.

I've been under fire in a combat zone before.
So I can admire, respect, and appreciate (better than most folks) just how outstanding a person your relative was.

There'll be an extra poppy laid on the cenotaph wreaths in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada's Victoria Park this year on Remembrance Day.

"Lay them with all that is most living, in light transcendent, In the ageless aisles of silence, with the Immortals that saved the world..."

-Inscription from the Books of Remembrance that record the names of Canada's war dead from each conflict we've fought in. Seems fitting to apply that to a real hero like your great uncle.

I thank you for your respect and admiration for my Great Uncle DarkAutumn. And my must say that transcript from the Canadian Book of Rememberance was rather fitting.

I must ask DarkAutumn, you mention being in the combat zone yourself, please (if you wish) tell me where did you serve?

thanks again

quote:

I must ask DarkAutumn, you mention being in the combat zone yourself, please (if you wish) tell me where did you serve? thanks again

-I fought in the Battle of the Medak Pocket in the former Yugoslavia in 1993 as part of a Canadian Forces Battlegroup deployed on UN Peacekeeping duty.

Long story short:
875 of us versus a Croat Army of over 2500.
We Won.

Thats extremely powerful stuff DarkAutumn.

That battle has got to be one of the greatest battles in Canadian history, if not the modern world.

Yet you only sustained four wounded and no one killed

I must say you Canadians have had a very strong military history. My cousin Lance Corporel Robert Steele is in Iraq at the moment, inside Basra with the Staffordshire Regiment of the British Army, but as for myself I have had no military experience as I am only sixteen and not a member of the armed forces.

Historically, 'Forlorn Hopes' don't turn out the way ours did.

And soldiers who win battles that save thousands of civilian lives usually don't have their governments cover it all up, either.

But ours did.

When it happened, all they said was that we'd deployed into the no man's land of an active battle and that 'our presence forced' both sides to stop shooting.
Just not how we did that, exactly...

It was 2 years before an Ottawa Sun reporter broke the story, embarrassing the government into full disclosure of the facts and breaking the silence we'd been forced to endure.

Very heroic indeed, but to tell the truth he was definetly not in his mind when he did his heroic charge(s).
Not a normal human beign would do that.

Personally, I believe he was very much in his right mind.

Valour isn't the absence of fear.
It's taking action despite fear.

And that requires understanding what a soldier's life is:

In part, it's the discipline instilled by military training.
The indoctrination to obey orders, regardless of what those orders are, until immediately obeying those orders becomes habit.
And force of habit is something far more powerful than the average person ever even realizes.

Another part of it is a feeling of almost a sort of peer pressure: Not wanting to let down the guys in your unit. To protect them from all harm.

In combat, your life literally can depend on the man next to you doing his job. Just as his life depends on your doing your own duty.

This fact is something that is also drilled into troops during training so that it becomes an automatic, instinctive response.

It's a valuable tool in overcoming personal fear of death or injury because that sense of responsibility can become so strong it overrides all sense of self preservation.

It's the Essence of Honour: Putting the needs and safety of others ahead of your own and chancing death rather than failure.
Or worse: Failure to protect your buddies, squad, platoon, etc.

Because of all this, soldiers can and do take what the average civilian would consider extreme, even insane, personal risk in order to save the lives of their fellow soldiers.

If for no other reason than to spare one of those fellow soldiers from having to take that risk themselves.

Putting the welfare of others ahead of one's own self to the point of overriding the instinct for self preservation is, inarguably, the very most noble act of valour any person can attain.

Private John D. Magrath did exactly that.
He didn't plan on dying in the process.
But neither did he shy away from the risk of it.

Like Scripture says: No Greater Love Hath Any Man, That He Lay Down His Life For His Friends.

The strength to go any distance, bear any burden , to protect others in a righteous cause is how we're all supposed to be.

Anything less than our full potential isn't a right frame of mind.
It's simply being less. And that's what's crazy.
Why be less when you ARE more? When there IS more to you?

Men like Magrath lived fully in their short, tragic lives.
More importantly, they lived right, and sadly, died that way as well.
And that it stands out is a sad commentary on the rest of us because we're NOT like that in our own personal lives.

Their examples need to be remembered, honoured, and emulated.
Because it's how we are supposed to be & expected to be by God; and by the highest ideals any individual or nation-state can aspire to in this life.
They led the way, showed us the honourable path to follow. And we must.
Or their sacrifice was in vain, wasn't it?

That's what 1st World War Canadian Army surgeon Col. John McCrae warned the world almost a century ago, shortly before his own death:

"Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."

It's what Shakespeare attributed to King Henry V half a millennium ago:

"And gentlemen in England, now abed, shall think themselves accursed they were not there. And hold their manhood cheap, when any speaks who fought with us on Crispin's Day."

It's sad to say, but it's peacetime that breeds the worst kinds of people.
It allows them to flourish and wallow in every base sort of behaviour.
And wartime merely gives them full reign to their darkest natures.

When enough is enough, wars begin to put a stop to them and their kind.
And it's wartime that actually breeds the best kind of people.
It's a crucible that refines & purifies the human spirit.
An epiphany that strips aways the illusions of our work-a-day world and all the various escapes and entertainments we lose ourselves in.

It's a singular event that makes a man take out his soul, examine it, and forces him to decide then and there just what he believes in and stands for.
What's worth living for. What's worth dying for. What actually matters.

And just what he's going to personally do about it:
-By taking responsibility for personally helping put a stop to the madness of a war by partaking of one. Even though it might cost him all.

It's a level of maturity that few people ever discover or know exists.
Those who do are far better men for it than they ever were before.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DarkAutumn,

quote:

Originally posted by DarkAutumn:
When enough is enough, wars begin to put a stop to them and their kind.
And it's wartime that actually breeds the best kind of people.
It's a crucible that refines & purifies the human spirit.
An epiphany that strips aways the illusions of our work-a-day world and all the various escapes and entertainments we lose ourselves in.

It's a singular event that makes a man take out his soul, examine it, and forces him to decide then and there just what he believes in and stands for.
What's worth living for. What's worth dying for. What actually matters.

And just what he's going to personally do about it:
-By taking responsibility for personally helping put a stop to the madness of a war by partaking of one. Even though it might cost him all.

It's a level of maturity that few people ever discover or know exists.
Those who do are far better men for it than they ever were before.

WOW. Your post is very eloquent and full of info. I dont know why you bother with this historical forum -- you need something more professional

However, as a victim of a war in Bosnia (i was 13-16 at the time) I must tell you that wars DO NOT breed the best people but often the opposite. The good ones, with ideals, get killed off quickly. If wars were puryfing human spirit there wouldnt be that many PTSD war vets running around.
Men dont have time to figure out why they are fighting a war. they are thrown into it and have to survive and follow orders. That's why people say that all that matters is the man next to you and not God and country. The latter appears in speeches for press after victory parades.
Believe me there is no maturity in war. Only killing and raping and pillaging. You need a strong military police to keep order and "maturity" in a war zone.

I think war is as natural to human beings as eating or mating, some enjoy it some cannot avoid it, and there was a latin saying thatmakes me understand why we need wars.
"Si vis pacem para bellum"
"To achieve peace you got to prepare for war."
Again this soldier we talk about on this forum was extremely brave, but still don't you think he was like not there. (I dont mean it like that, because he definetly left a marK!)
I cant imagine what he was thinking really, maybe he just got "empty" and felt that hell we gotta advance, or maybe he just wanted to encourage his fellow soldiers, or his action was the pure sign of fear, but he was definetly not in a normal mental state and I dont necessarily mean it in a negative way.

I was in the former Yugoslavia in 1993 with the Canadian army.

We didn't need military police enforcing our every action. We didn't descend to the level of those around us (murdering, raping and pillaging).

The restraint we showed by NOT forgetting that we were Canadian soldiers and obeying orders to NOT wipe the whole filthy stinking place clean off the map proves that maturity I spoke of.

We didn't know why those people had descended back into anarchy, nihilism and savagery.
We couldn't understand how modern people could do such things to each other, regardless of the rallying cry of their cause.

But what we saw; what we did; and what we did not/would not do while there did strip away the immature illusions of what war was like.
It tested us to the limits of our tolerance, understanding, compassion, and discipline.

And those we killed, and those we wished we could've taken under fire (cause they flat out deserved to die) those were men who chose that path.

Men who in peacetime let their own intolerance, ignorance and hatred consume them to the point where they followed thought with action.
Then action with atrocity as peace became war, and war became ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Men for whom summary battlefield execution would've been too good - and quick - a death.

Then there were the weaklings. The ones who followed orders and did as their comrades did because they lacked the inner framework of morals, ethics, principles, and scruples to fuel the courage to refuse to partake of it all.
And I refuse to countenance such men either.
Men who had the choice to stand up and BE men but who failed to even try.

I spare them no pity. Because I was there and I did my duty in the cause of humanity, not against it.

But those animals and those cowards existed amongst the Serbs, Muslims and Croats.

We faced off against such men of all three sides as often as we tried to protect them. (And trying to make sense of THAT particular insanity alone challenged our faculties of reason like nothing else in life ever will.)
Everyone was the enemy. No one was the enemy. All at the same time.

We each of us did undergo a personal struggle to make sense of it all and our place in it. We each were exposed to a crucible that tried us and showed us not only the heights and depths of the human condition, but of our own personal selves as well.

And the simple fact that we rotated out of that hellhole and reintegrated back into our various parent units or, as in the case of the Reservists, went back to our homes and lives and families with our honour intact and our integrity uncompromised is proof positive of everything I've tried to explain in this post. We'd survived.

We'd had our innocence and our illusions stripped away.
We'd been sobered by our experiences. We had a newfound appreciation of the sanctity of human life and just how fortunate we were to live where we live, have what we have, and be loved by those we love. We were wiser men.
And as such, we each grew and discovered that maturity I mentioned.

A high ratio of troops I served with did come down with post traumatic stress disorder after Medak. Not because of anything they'd done.
But from what they'd seen those animals doing to each other over there and their inability to come to terms with it.
The reason 'why' is rooted in empathy: They personally could never do such things or possibly imagine themselves doing such things. And because of that they could not reconcile the horrors we saw over there because they could not understand the people we knew had committed them.
Like one said: "But they look just like us! Just like real people..."

And that only proves the absolute superior quality of the men I was privileged to serve with over there:
Even our psychological casualties were better men than those we faced.

And as a post script:

Of the men in my squad, two were called to preach and one's a lay pastor while the other is attending seminary school.

Men of God, and no longer or ever again to be men of war.
That alone also proves the maturity I spoke of.

A 3rd guy decided to become a doctor and enrolled in pre-med. To help instead of hurt.

And I chose to become an artist. To create beautiful things rather than blow them to bits.
Because I choose to. Because I choose life and all that it best and most beautiful about it.
But don't mistake me for a hippy peacefreak.
I know I have what it takes. And to spare some dumb schmuck from getting his own head blown off I'd re-enlist if Queen and Country called.

So I pity you your experiences growing up over there. I sincerely do. But what I went through in just the short time I was there changed me.

For one thing, I talk too **** much.
Which comes from having faced a situation wherein my voice might easily have been silenced forever. And almost did but nevermind that.

And when I proselytize like this, that too is a direct result of lessons learned the hard way.

I gained alot of wisdom. Now I pass it along for those who might care to learn some. Or those who don't have any.

Think of it like this: Guys will work out to build muscle. But if you never build up inner strength, what use is outer strength?

If a guy has no self control, no self discipline, no guiding framework of principles, etc to live by then the guy has no honour.
Only the illusion of it.

And the minute some temptation or crisis comes along, he WILL fail to know, choose, and stick to the right thing to do.

Because that guy never learned, and was never taught to develop inner strength. Standards and Boundaries: What he'll put up with from others and what he will put up with from himself.

If I threw a uniform on that guy and took him for a 10km run with full pack, harness, and weapon he wouldn't make it to the end of the street. Let alone make it through a standard obstacle course afterwards.

And the inner stuff I'm talking about is the same a situation like that.

But you know that from what you saw growing up:
Men who degenerated into bestiality because they did not have the moral means to stop themselves.

Others know that from one look at crime stats.
Or the divorce rate.
Or the shootings and looting in New Orleans following the hurricane.

First of all Dark Autumn, I would like to thank you for your service with UNPROFOR. You were not appreciated in the Medak pocket (I am a Croat by the way) but there are many that are thankful for the brave service you have provided. Your troops have saved many from peril and you have exposed criminal conduct of all sides involved. The Canadians are among the few UN troops who stood their ground and fought back, often outnumbered and outgunned. And I can appreciate your confusion in a land where everyone was an enemy and a supposed friend, all at the same time.
I was a kid during the war and am proud and lucky to be an American today. Like you, I did not have a side in that crazy, stupid war precisely because the crimes on all sides. I thought about it a lot and have promised myself that if I am ever in combat (God forbid) I will arrest or kill anyone of my fellow troops that kill and rape civilians no matter what happens to me (maybe a little naive, romantic and idealistic on my part but I believe it firmly).
But, you cannot compare Canadian army to "soldiers" you've encountered in Croatia and Bosnia. You were a professional army, representing a proud, western nation. If you decided to perpetrate crimes your shamed nation would have you all arrested and locked up forever. In Bosnia there were no trained, professional armies. They were armed and organized, yes, but far from professional. When these "troops" were created, criminals were atop the power structure. They were the ones who had weapons, who wanted war, and who have spread fear and hatred among the rest. When they killed and raped they forced others to participate, successfully making criminals out of witnesses. There was nobody that you could complain to when murderers are running the show. You shut up or you die. There is a story of a Serb soldier in Srebrenica who was told he must kill Muslim captives. He said to his squad leader he will not participate in the madness. In return, he was asked to give back his AK and join Muslims in the line. He did not--he killed and was later tried for war crimes.
It is just a simple fact of life that most of us will kill in hope of not being killed.
That, of course, is wrong and all criminals MUST BE PUNISHED, but it is human nature. "The dead know only one thing--that it is better to be alive."
You see this all through history, especially in civil wars. People just get killing mad.
There are brave idealists like a Geramn WW1 soldier who refused to execute a nurse and was killed by his commander.
Many a man is a coward in that sense and a war does not bring out the best in most of us, butin a few it does. Some, even in Bosnia, on all sides, helped their neighbors escape death but they could not fight the people who tried to kill their friends of different ethnicity. They had to endure to the end.
Now, Croatia is trying to cope with its war past. Murders on Serbs are being acknowledged and in some cases punished. The perpetrators are very powerful though, rich and cunning, and many of them still in positions of power. But the good guys will win. It just takes a lot of ****ed time.

War is confusion, fear and a primitive fight for survival, and never just black and white. Like ww2, or your involment in UN forces it sometimes is necessary but it does not bring the best in us, only in a select few like PFC John D. Magrath.
Hopefully you will forgive me this gibberish--i should have organized it better.

quote:

Originally posted by gustave.jany:
and there was a latin saying thatmakes me understand why we need wars.
"Si vis pacem para bellum"
"To achieve peace you got to prepare for war."

I beleive that the proper translation is "if you want peace prepare for war". Which waas said by Flavius Vegetius Renatus, a celebrated military writer of the 4th century AD. The actual Latin is "Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum".

But good try nether the less.

The 10th Mountain Division was my first unit after basic and airborne, and every man (every infantryman at least) learned the story of your Uncle. On the line I would tell my guys, "What would bloodbath Magrath do here?" Stepping up when it's tough is how you separate a man from a mere male, and when you do it in combat so that one of your buds doesn't have to risk it is how you separate men from mountain men.

Your uncle is a true hero, and was an expert in his profession. It's been a long time since I've been in the mountain division, but you're post here to honor your uncle brought back a lot of good memories, and reminded me of some important values.


I just wish I could of asked him something...If we're a 'light' division why do carry so much ****?

-Pissed off Sergeant