World War One for the day

Michael Shear has an article in The New York Times about some long-overdue medals:

President Obama recently awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to two American soldiers, one African-American and one Jewish, whose valor and sacrifice on the French front lines during World War One had not been fully recognized.
“We are a nation, a people, who remember our heroes,” Obama said of the two men, who were honored posthumously. “They both left us decades ago, before we could give them the full recognition that they deserve. But it’s never too late to say thank you.”
Obama said the country had failed to properly acknowledge the contributions of Private Henry Johnson, a black soldier, because of the segregation in the Army at the time he served. And Obama said Sergeant William Shemin, a Jewish-American, had also been slighted.
In a solemn ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Obama said the country needed to express its gratitude, even 97 years after the soldiers’ acts of courage. “It takes our nation too long, sometimes, to say so,” he said. “We have work to do as a nation to make sure that all of our heroes’ stories are told.” He added: “The least we can do is to say, ‘We know who you are, we know what you did for us. We are forever grateful.’”
During the ceremony, Obama described the bravery that both men displayed during intense fighting at the height of the war.
During night sentry duty on 15 May 1918, Private Johnson helped his Harlem Hellfighters regiment repel a surprise attack by a dozen German raiders. With only a knife, he single-handedly held off the enemy, preventing the capture of a wounded fellow soldier. Private Johnson died about a decade later from twenty combat-related injuries.
But, for most of the past century, the Army resisted efforts to award the Medal of Honor to him, citing, in part, that the service of Private Johnson and his fellow black soldiers under a French command, not an American one. At the time, racial discrimination in the Army prevented black soldiers from fighting alongside white troops.
The Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award for valor, was accepted by Command Sergeant Major Louis Wilson of the New York National Guard on behalf of Private Johnson, who had entered the Army as a member of an all-black National Guard unit in 1917. “The great thing about America is that we undo our injustices more than any other country,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat from New York, who spent years trying to get the Medal of Honor for Private Johnson. “His act of heroism was amazing.”
Sergeant Shemin was an Army rifleman who, during a three-day battle in August of 1918, repeatedly left the safety of his platoon’s trench to recover wounded soldiers amid a barrage of machine-gun fire and artillery shells. He was hit by shrapnel, and a bullet pierced his helmet, lodging behind his left ear.
Sergeant Shemin survived, then earned a degree from the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, started a landscaping business, and had three children. He died in 1973. The medal was awarded at the urging of Jewish organizations.
These Medals of Honor were the 44th and 45th that Obama had awarded.
The stories of the two soldiers offer a glimpse into the often bleak circumstances in France during World War One, as British, French, and American troops battled the advancing German army across the countryside.
In its official description of Sergeant Shemin’s actions, the Army notes that he assumed command of his platoon after all of those senior to him had become casualties in a battle on the Vesle River, near Bazoches.
The Army’s website for Sergeant Shemin quotes one of his superiors, Captain Rupert Purdon, as saying the sergeant, exhibiting utter disregard for his safety, “sprang from his position in his platoon trench” and “dashed out across the open in full sight of the Germans, who opened and maintained a furious burst of machine-gun and rifle fire.”
Private Johnson’s story is equally bracing. Serving under a French Army colonial unit on the western edge of the Forest of Argonne in the Champagne region, Private Johnson and a fellow soldier, Private Needham Roberts, were ambushed by German soldiers.
After Private Roberts was badly wounded, Private Johnson fought to keep him from being captured, according to the Army’s official narrative of the battle:

“Johnson exposed himself to grave danger by advancing from his position to engage an enemy soldier in hand-to-hand combat,” the Army account says. “Wielding only a knife and being seriously wounded, Johnson continued fighting, took his bolo knife and stabbed it through an enemy soldier’s head.”

Schumer said in an interview that Private Johnson had long deserved the Medal of Honor, but that early efforts to find a contemporaneous description of Private Johnson’s valor— one requirement for the award— had been unsuccessful. In 2011, however, a staff member in Schumer’s office discovered two such descriptions, helping to break through what he called a bureaucratic logjam. In addition, Schumer said, the Army relented on the rules about serving under an American command. “It’s so moving because of what Henry Johnson did, because of why he didn’t win the medal, all the bureaucracy,” he said. “I’m confident,” Schumer added, that Private Johnson and the man he protected, Private Roberts, are “looking down from heaven and smiling.”

Rico says they're probably shaking their heads, wondering what took so long...