In honor of National Medal of Honor Day on March 25, this week’s program features two MoH recipients and their heroic stories.

First we talk with Staff Sgt Clint Romesha, US Army Veteran

Army Staff Sgt Clint Romesha talks about growing up, joining up, overseas deployments, and the events of the 12 hour battle where 300 Taliban sought to overrun Outpost Keating in eastern Afghanistan. Romesha talks with host Jim Fausone about that day, learning he was to be awarded the MOH, visiting the White House, and what he has learned wearing the MOH.

Cecil Bolton received the Medal of Honor for his actions in WWII in Germany. Bolton joined the Army from Ft McClellan, near Anniston, Alabama on the 27th of July, 1942, and by November 2, 1944 was serving as a first lieutenant in Company E, 413th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division. On that day, near the Mark river in North Brabant, the Netherlands, he was seriously wounded in the legs by a German artillery shell. Despite these wounds, he took two men and led them in a successful assault against three German positions which were firing on his company. Wounded a second time, he ordered his two companions to leave him behind and head for the safety of the American lines. He then crawled the rest of the way back to his company. For these actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor ten months later, on September 1, 1945.

 

Bolton reached the rank of colonel before leaving the Army in 1962. He died at age 56 and was buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, San Antonio, Texas.

 

This interview is AI generated from a chapter on Bolton in the Beyond Belief series of Alabama’s heroic military members. The series is edited by C Douglas Sterner.

 

More information about 1st Lt. Bolton can be found on his Congressional Medal of Honor Society page.