Congressional Medal of Honor recipients tell Y-12, ORNL employees it's about all who serve

Four of the 65 living Congressional Medal of Honor recipients spoke at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge on Wednesday about what it means to receive the nation's highest military honor.

Basically, they said, it's not about them.

Each spoke not of their efforts, but of representing and honoring those in the past and present who served or serve in the military, those who came back from wars and conflicts – and those who didn't.

Their panel discussion at Y-12's New Hope Center was the focus of the Medal of Honor Valor Outreach Program. It was held in conjunction with the annual Congressional Medal of Honor Society Convention, which is underway in Knoxville.

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Three of the panelists served in the Vietnam War: Harvey Curtiss "Barney" Barnum Jr., 82; Harold Arnold Fritz, 78; and Robert Martin Patterson, 74; while William D. Swenson, 43, who jokingly described himself as the "resident whippersnapper," served in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan.

"I wear it (the medal) for those I served with, and I wear it for those who serve," Swenson said. "It is truly representative of our total (armed) service."

Recalling the day when his Army superior told him he was being recommended for the Medal of Honor, he said he thought, "Please don't do that."

Swenson had just lost five soldiers and 10 Afghans working with them.

"It was a rough day," he said.

"It's about those Marines, sailors, corpsmen. ... We came together as a team that day," Barnum said of receiving the medal because of the actions of Dec. 18, 1965.

Serving in Vietnam, information from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society website verbally illustrates, young Marine Capt. Barnum found the rifle company commander mortally wounded and the radio operator dead outside the village of Ky Phu in the Quang Tin province of Vietnam. He gave aid to the commander and strapped on the radio, taking command of the rifle company and leading them into heavy fire and an attack on the enemy.

He was the fourth Marine to receive the medal for actions during Vietnam and received his medal from Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze in the Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C., because, as he described it, President Lyndon B. Johnson didn't want such publicity because the war wasn't going well.

Barnum, a retired colonel, later served as deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for reserve affairs and acting assistant secretary of the Navy (manpower and reserve affairs). He said whenever he would make a decision in those roles, he'd consider what the men he served with would say was the right decision, rather than what was politically the best decision.

He joked that this resulted in him being dropped from a lot of Christmas card lists in Washington, D.C., but "I could not let them (his comrades) down."

Patterson was the only enlisted man on the panel. He was an Army specialist fourth class at the time of his heroic effort near La Chu in Vietnam. Patterson single handedly destroyed five enemy bunkers, killed eight enemy soldiers and captured seven weapons while armed only with a rifle and all the "grenades I could carry," he said in a video shown prior to the panel discussion and supported by information on the Congressional Medals Society website.

"I honestly cannot remember a single thing," he said in the video about that incident in 1968.

Patterson said when his sergeant told him later that he was going to Washington, D.C., he replied, "I ain't got no damn reason to go to D.C."

But he did, receiving his medal from President Richard Nixon in 1969.

Of life after receiving the medal, Patterson said, "You put it on and it changes everything you do." He said he didn't want to embarrass those he served with, particularly those who didn't return from Vietnam.

"It changes your language quite a bit," he joked.

"You're simply the messenger," said Fritz. He said being a Medal of Honor recipient means you are a representative of all who sacrificed and served in the military.

"You weren't killed because there were additional missions for you to do," he said.

Although seriously wounded in the initial attack during warfare in Vietnam, Fritz, then an Army first lieutenant, jumped on top of his burning vehicle and directed the positions of the remaining vehicles and men. He then went from vehicle to vehicle helping others, distributing ammunition and manning a machine gun himself.

"Each of you did something to go against our instinct to run away from danger," said Teresa Robbins, National Nuclear Security Administration production office manager, who gave the opening remarks for the program.

"You're courageous, you're humble," she said.

The panel discussion was attended by other Y-12, NNSA and Oak Ridge National Laboratory officials and employees, along with Oak Ridge Mayor Warren Gooch, Roane County Executive Wade Creswell and state Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge.

The Oak Ridger's News Editor Donna Smith can be contacted at (865) 220-5514 or by email at dsmith@oakridger.com. Follow her on Twitter @ridgernewsed.

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Medal of Honor recipients visit Y-12 in Oak Ridge during celebration