Tonight on PBS “Medal of Honor”
In Medal of Honor, powerful stories of those who have received our nation’s highest military honor beg fundamental questions about the nature of the human spirit and what it means to have the courage of a hero. Produced and directed by Roger Sherman, the 90-minute film traces the history of the Medal of Honor from a profile of Sgt. Paul Smith, the first soldier to receive a Medal of Honor in the Iraq war, back to its creation during the Civil War. Among those profiled in the film are a Holocaust survivor who single-handedly defended a hill from an advancing enemy force in the Korean War, an injured Navy SEAL who saved the lives of two comrades by swimming for two hours to bring them to safety, and a Marine at Iwo Jima who alone silenced seven Japanese bunkers with a flamethrower to clear a path for his demoralized company.