President Joe Biden awarded two Ohioans with the highest award for military valor. U.S. Army veterans Kenneth David and Fred McGee received the Medal of Honor last week.
The medal is awarded to military service members who show profound heroism during combat with enemy forces.
“These are genuine to the core heroes. Heroes of different ranks, of different positions and even different generations,” Biden said at the ceremony on Jan 3. “Heroes who all went above and beyond the call of duty. Heroes who all deserve our nation’s highest and oldest military recognition: the Medal of Honor.”
Ohio has a long tradition of Medal of Honor awardees, spanning back to the first recipient, Private Jacob Parrott. He was recognized for his bravery in the American Civil War. Since then, more than 300 Ohioans have been given the distinction.
Specialist Fourth Class Kenneth J. David
Kenneth David grew up in Girard, outside of Youngstown, where he was an Eagle Scout before he was drafted.
In 1970, at just 20 years old, he was sent to Vietnam. While serving as a radio-telephone officer, his platoon was overrun. Amid the attack, he handed his radio off to his sergeant and sprang into action.
“I kept saying, ‘I got to get back to my boys. My boys, I gotta help them,’” David recalled.
David yelled to draw enemy fire away from his comrades. He was injured by an explosive and low on ammunition. Still, he persevered.
“I was not alone that day. I had superior help from the Lord above. From that day on my life changed. It's not about me. It's about helping the rest of my fellow veterans,” he said.
He now works with the Girard chapter of the nonprofit DAV, or Disabled American Veterans. There, he helps returning soldiers adjust to civilian life.
“I get the most enjoyment when a veteran comes to our DAV building … I give him a gift card for $50 or $100 and he shakes my hand, he’s crying. And his wife will give me a kiss on the cheek, she's crying … They have nothing. But $100 is so important to them.”
The thanks he gets from those he helps is reward enough, David said, but he was overwhelmed with gratitude to have his service honored at the White House. Much of his family watched his decoration ceremony, including his 7-year-old grandson.
“I think as he gets older, he's going to realize the significance and the importance of what I went through,” David said.
Corporal Fred B. McGee
While David received his medal in person, Fred McGee passed away in 2020. His Medal of Honor was accepted by his daughter, Victoria Secrest, who worked since 1990 to get national recognition for her father’s bravery.
“For me, it means justice was finally served on an honorable man who loved his country,” Secrest said.
McGee was born in Steubenville and raised nearby in the village of Bloomingdale. He served as a gunner in the Korean War: the first U.S. war in which Black servicemen, like himself, were fully integrated with white soldiers. When his platoon leader was injured in an intense battle, he took command.
He was wounded, but he still helped evacuate the injured and dead. He risked his life to bring them to safety.
“He knew a lot of those men, he saw them die on the battlefield. And he was allowed to come back. He made it out of that situation and it was an insurmountable, insurmountable situation,” Secrest said.
“I think he was just grateful, grateful to be alive and to be able to make his contributions to his country and to people in other ways and to instill in his children: it's not just about you. You have to do for others as well.”
He didn’t just inspire his family. When publishers at Heroic Comics learned of McGee’s acts of valor, they immortalized it in their 81st issue, named “Hill 528” after the battle’s location.
But the comic book portrayed McGee as white.
“He was disappointed,” Secrest said. “He felt that somebody else was being given credit for what he had done on that battlefield, on that hill. It was a bittersweet moment for him.”
Receiving the nation’s highest honor has partially helped to right that wrong, said McGee’s granddaughter Kristen Bailey. He was promised by a commanding officer that he would one day receive the Medal of Honor. She just wishes he was still alive to see that promise fulfilled.
“We know that if he was alive, it would have meant so, so, so much to him to receive it when he was still living,” Bailey said.
She remembers her Pap as brave, of course. But, above all, she said he was a selfless man.
“Everything he did, he did with love.”
