The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 10, March 3, 2002, Article 10

MORE ON THE FOSS MEDAL OF HONOR INCIDENT

  Larry Dziubek forwarded a copy of a February 24, 2002
  Chicago Tribune article by Bob Greene titled "The Suspicious
  Thing in the Old Man's Pocket", about the airport incident
  in which General Joe Foss' Congressional Medal of Honor
  was nearly taken from him after being discovered and
  considered a potential weapon.  See The E-Sylum, January
  20, 2002 (Volume 5, Number 03).   Here are some excerpts:

  'They just kept passing it around - there were eight or nine
  or 10 of them who handled it before it was over," he said.

  "They had found it in my pocket at the airport, and they
  thought it was suspicious.  It's shaped like a star, and they
  were looking at the metal edges of it, like it was a weapon.
  I asked for it back, but they kept handing it to each other
  and inspecting it.  I was told to move to a separate area.

  "I told them - just turn it over.  The engraving on the back
  explains everything.  But they thought they must have
  something potentially dangerous here.

  "I told them exactly what it was - I said, 'That's my
  Congressional Medal of Honor.'"

  I spoke with Foss because I wanted to hear it from him
 directly.   He told me that he holds no animosity about the
  incident - "I'm just as interested in defeating the terrorists
  as anyone is, I promise you that" - and that he is mostly
  sad that no one knew what the Medal of Honor was.

  Foss was awarded the medal by President Franklin D.
  Roosevelt during World War II after shooting down 26
  enemy planes as a Marine fighter pilot in solo combat in
  the Pacific.  He grew up in South Dakota - after the war
  he would become governor of that state - and took flying
  lessons as a young man, then went to war.

  I asked him what he remembered about being presented the
  Congressional Medal of Honor. "I was right fresh out of
  combat when I was called to the White House," he said.
  "FDR was behind his desk, and he pinned the medal on my
  uniform.  He said it was for actions above and beyond the
  call of duty.

  "I was nervous, being in the presence of the president.  I
  think I may have been more nervous there than I was in
  combat.  My wife and mother were with me - it was quite
  a day.  I think President Roosevelt called me 'young feller.'"

  After the White House ceremony, Foss had his photograph
  taken with the medal - the nation's highest military honor for
  valor in action - on his uniform.  That photo was the full front
  cover of Life magazine, the issue of June 7, 1943; the cover
  caption was: "Captain Foss, U.S.M.C. America's No. 1
  Ace."

  And now, almost 60 years later, the Medal of Honor was
  being handed from one skeptical security screener to
  another in the Phoenix airport, while Foss, at 86, took his
  boots and belt off as ordered.

  "I wasn't upset for me," he said.  "I was upset for the Medal
  of Honor, that they just didn't know what it even was.  It
  represents all of the guys who lost their lives - the guys who
  never came back.  Everyone who put their lives on the line
  for their country.  You're supposed to know what the
  Medal of Honor is."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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