Obit watch: John Finn, the last of the 15 Navy men who were at Pearl Harbor and received the Medal of Honor for their actions on that day, and the oldest living Medal of Honor recipient.
When Chief Finn arrived at the hangars, many of the planes had already been hit. He recalled that he grabbed a .30-caliber machine gun on a makeshift tripod, carried it to an exposed area near a runway and began firing. For the next two and a half hours, he blazed away, although peppered by shrapnel as the Japanese planes strafed the runways with cannon fire.
While I hate to say anything negative about a Medal of Honor recipient, his taste in movies left something to be desired:
In 1999, Mr. Finn was among Pearl Harbor veterans invited to Hawaii for the premiere of the Hollywood movie “Pearl Harbor.” “It was a damned good movie,” he told The Boston Herald in 2001. “It’s helped educate people who didn’t know about Pearl Harbor and what happened there.”
“I liked it especially,” he said, “because I got to kiss all those pretty little movie actresses.”
At the same time, the NYT also has an article asking why so few Medals of Honor have been awarded for service in Iraq or Afghanistan. The article is tied to the case of Sgt. Rafael Peralta, who may (or may not) have thrown himself on a grenade after taking a bullet in the head.
Sgt. Peralta was recommended for the MoH, but that was downgraded to a Navy Cross; however, his family has refused to accept the award and is campaigning to have him awarded the MoH. It seems to me that they have a strong case; yet, it also seems to me (as an outside observer) that refusing the Navy Cross looks bad.
Sergeant Peralta’s fellow Marines seemed to think what he did was worth a medal: fell on a grenade, saved the lives of a bunch of Marines.
I don’t know what his family is thinking, honestly. The Navy Cross isn’t chicken feed or a nice letter from the colonel. Yeah, your son is dead but .. not every dead guy can get a MOH, or the thing is gonna be seriously devalued.