Eleven-year-old David Smith accepts the Medal of Honor from President Bush on behalf of his father, who was killed in Iraq while protecting fellow soldiers from attack.

10:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, April 5, 2005

BY MICHAEL CORKERY
Journal Staff Writer

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In the East Room of the White House, under glittering chandeliers and before a wall of clicking cameras, President Bush bestowed the military's highest honor on a soldier who died in Iraq doing what he promised he would do.

Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, 33, died protecting his soldiers, and yesterday he became the first to receive the Medal of Honor since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began.

"A man has no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends," Mr. Bush told the room full of military personnel and members of Smith's family.

Smith was killed two years ago in a battle on the outskirts of the Baghdad airport.

Mr. Bush said the self-effacing combat engineer from Florida went beyond the call of duty by exposing himself to danger as he fired a .50-caliber machine gun at waves of attacking Iraqi soldiers.

The Medal of Honor enshrines Smith's actions among the most hallowed moments in U.S. military history.

Smith saved the lives of 100 soldiers, some of whom went to the White House ceremony in crisp green dress uniforms and sat with their wives and girlfriends.

Smith left behind a wife and two children. The president gave the medal to Smith's 11 year-old son, David, who wore a blue suit bought for the occasion. His mother says he's "the man of the house now."

Smith's actions at the airport were extraordinary. He fought in the same dusty fields and sweltering heat as 1 million Americans who have served in Iraq since March 2003. But his experiences as a soldier -- and the experiences of his family -- have been shared by many since the 2001 terrorist attacks mobilized the military to war around the world.

"We recall with appreciation the fellow soldiers whose lives he saved," Mr. Bush said. "And the many more he inspired."

SMITH and his unit -- the Army's 3rd Infantry Division -- reached the Baghdad airport in the early morning of April 4, 2003, about three weeks after they left Kuwait.

Smith didn't sleep much the night before. Not many soldiers did.

By dawn, the air was muggy and the temperature rising when Smith's unit pulled into the eastern edge of the airport, along a highway about 10 miles from Baghdad.

AP photo / U.S. Army

Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith is seen in this undated handout photo provided by the U.S. Army. He was killed in action when his outnumbered unit was attacked by Iraqi forces at the Baghdad airport April 4, 2003 and is credited for saving hundreds of lives.

They were at Saddam's doorstep, one of the nearest advancing U.S. units to the Iraqi capital.

Smith ordered his men -- a platoon of engineers -- to construct a holding pen in a courtyard for Iraqi prisoners of war.

A bulldozer knocked a hole in the courtyard wall. The exhausted American soldiers went to work.

The Iraqis attacked. At first, according to the Pentagon, there were about a dozens Iraqis attacking the courtyard, then 20 to 50, then 100 Iraqi soldiers firing rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and 60mm mortars.

The Americans in the courtyard were outnumbered and pinned down.

Smith ran to the other end of the courtyard and threw a hand grenade over a wall.

Mortars hit nearby. Sgt. Louis Berwald stood exposed, atop an M113 -- an armored personnel carrier -- firing its .50-caliber machine gun. Shrapnel ripped into his elbow and tore into his finger.

Derek Pelletier, 25, of Fall River, fired a rocket launcher at the Iraqis from outside the courtyard.

Inside the courtyard, Smith took control, while Berwald and two other wounded soldiers were evacuated.

Smith climbed onto the M113 and fired its machine gun at the Iraqis in a control tower and those coming through a gate.

Smith stood behind the gun, exposed to Iraqi fire. He burned through three boxes of ammunition.

"Feed me ammunition, whenever you hear the gun get quiet," Smith told a fellow soldier, according to the Pentagon.

The attack subsided. The Medal of Honor citation says Smith killed between 20 and 50 Iraqis before he was shot once in the head.

"THERE IS no question if he hadn't done what he had done, I wouldn't be talking to you right now," said Sgt. Chuck Harmon.

Harmon was outside the courtyard that morning. Now an Army recruiter in Williamsport, Pa., he was in Washington yesterday to honor Smith.

"He knew what had to be done. Instead of sending someone else to do it, he did it himself," Berwald said.

Berwald, 24, was in Washington, too. He traveled from Iraq, where he and the 3rd Infantry are serving a second tour. He flew out of the same airport where Smith was killed.

"You can't even put it into words what it was like," Pelletier said of the battle.

Pelletier drove to the White House from Fall River. He brought his mother, Cindy Pelletier, a nurse at St. Anne's Hospital, in Fall River, to the ceremony. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld walked over to shake their hands.

Smith joined the Army in 1989, after finishing high school in Tampa. His family said he was perfect for the combat engineers because he liked to blow up things as a teenager.

Mr. Bush said, "when he joined the Army, he was a typical young American. He liked sports, he liked fast cars and he liked to stay out late with friends."

But his experience in the first Gulf War focused him. With soldiers under his command, he was meticulous and a stickler for detail and discipline, even to the point of being annoying.

The engineer's company commander, Capt. Michael Bliss, recalled asking Smith to prepare the prisoner-of-war site at the airport.

"I said, 'Sgt. Smith has got it' and I knew it would be done. You wish everyone was like that."

These days, Bliss studies environmental engineering at Virginia Tech. A father of three, he considers himself among the 100 men whom Smith saved.

"You think about it. You definitely think about it," Bliss said.

BIRGIT SMITH stood on the stage with her two children, Jessica, 18, and David, and the president of the United States.

The audience applauded. Mr. Bush gently patted David's back and kissed Mrs. Smith on the cheek.

It was a remarkable moment for a German woman who married an American soldier in 1992, when he was stationed in Europe and became, in her words, "a military wife."

After the ceremony, Birgit Smith walked out of the White House to deliver a message to all the families who have lost someone in war but will never receive a medal at the White House.

"Paul represents the best that is in all of our soldiers and most especially those who have lost their lives," she told reporters.

"I know the pain that the families suffer, and I want to reach out to them and let them know their loved ones are not forgotten."

"Every one of our soldiers deserves the title of hero. For they, too, have answered the noble calling."

Birgit Smith said last week that she has gotten stronger since her husband's death.

Shoppers salute her in the supermarket. Drivers roll down their windows when they pass to say they are sorry. She's inspired to become an American citizen.

"Two years ago, I was still very hurt and very sad. I still miss Paul every single day. But I've gotten my strength back. I've gotten more strength," she said last week.

She draws much of her strength from her family, especially from David, she said. He's a fifth grader in Holiday, Fla. His mother requested that he receive the medal from the president.

"He's such a little man," his mother said last week. "And that's 100 percent Paul."