EX-MARINE FOUGHT FOR HONOR OF MEDAL.Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
If his life was a movie, you would stand up and applaud at the end, and there would be tears in your eyes. You would walk out of the theater on a high, anxious to tell your best friends about this incredible man who just left us - World War II Medal of Honor Medal of Honor highest American military decoration for wartime gallantry. [Am. Hist.: Misc.] See : Bravery recipient Mitchell Paige Mitchell Paige (August 31, 1918 – November 15, 2003) was a recipient of the Medal of Honor from World War II. He received this most prestigious military honor awarded by the United States of America for his actions at the Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands on . He died Saturday at 85, and his obituary should have been on the front page of every newspaper in this country because he was that important. It wasn't. It should have led the local nightly news Nightly News may refer to
or Cable News Network Subsidiary company of Turner Broadcasting Systems. It was created by Ted Turner in 1980 to present 24-hour live news broadcasts, using satellites to transmit reports from news bureaus around the world. . It wasn't. Flags all over the country should be flying at half-staff this week in his honor and memory. They're not. Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner and all the other leading men should be calling their agents right now to get them an audition to play Mitchell Paige. It's an Oscar role waiting to happen. But they're not, because like most people they never heard of Mitchell Paige and what he did for this country for more than 60 years - right up to the day he died. ``They throw this word hero around a lot these days,'' says FBI agent Tom Cottone Jr. ``Movie hero, sports hero. But you know something? The real heroes, like Mitch, never use the word. Really, they don't. ``Mitchell Paige was the greatest person I ever met,'' Cottone said by phone Wednesday from his office in the violent crime task force in Newark, N.J. He was the greatest person a lot of us ever had the privilege of meeting. The more he read the Medal of Honor citation, the more he got goose bumps goose bumps or goose pimples: see gooseflesh. , Cottone remembers, looking at the background of this man he started working with in 1995, shortly after Congress passed a bill stiffening stiff·en tr. & intr.v. stiff·ened, stiff·en·ing, stiff·ens To make or become stiff or stiffer. stiff the penalties for anyone caught fraudulently making, buying, selling or even wearing the Medal of Honor. His name was Paige, and he was a retired Marine Corps colonel who had been chasing phony Medal of Honor recipients His bravery was legendary in the Marine Corps. When Hasbro Inc., maker of the famous GI Joe dolls, went looking in 1998 for one Marine to honor as the new GI Joe action figure representing all Medal of Honor recipients, it was the name Mitchell Paige that went on the box. He was a 24-year-old machine-gun platoon sergeant platoon sergeant n. The senior noncommissioned officer in an army platoon or comparable unit. in charge of 33 men who dug in and fought through the night, repelling an attack of more than 2,500 Japanese soldiers trying to overrun an airfield on Guadalcanal in 1942. When reinforcements finally arrived the next morning, they found Paige's whole platoon either dead or severely wounded. Paige was still fighting - moving from machine gun to machine gun after his own weapon was spent, firing from the hip to keep the enemy at bay until help arrived. ``When I got my medal, I dedicated it to every one of the 33 men in my platoon who were killed or severely wounded holding off the enemy,'' Paige told me when we met at the 1st Marine Division's 58th anniversary in 1999 at Camp Pendleton. ``They were the real heroes. The guys who gave up their lives, the guys nobody ever recognized because nobody knows their names. ``To have these phonies take the glory is a disgrace,'' he said. It was a disgrace - a disgrace FBI Agent Cottone wanted to help him uncover after he arrested a military collectibles dealer for selling a couple of phony Medals of Honor for $500 each. ``At the time, I was totally unaware something like this was going on,'' Cottone said. ``When I called the national Medal of Honor Society, they said, 'It's about time, it's been going on for years.' ``That's when they told me about Col. Paige, and how he had been out there for 40 years tracking down these phonies,'' he said. ``That's when I also learned the real Medal of Honor recipients are the most humble guys you'd ever want to meet. The impostors are the direct opposite. They want to tell everyone how great they are.'' Phonies like the grand marshal Grand Marshal is a ceremonial, military, or political office of very high rank. The term has its origins with the word "Marshal" with the first usage of the term "Grand Marshal" as a ceremonial title for certain religious orders. of a Fourth of July Fourth of July, Independence Day, or July Fourth, U.S. holiday, commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Celebration of it began during the American Revolution. parade in Twentynine Palms whom Paige exposed, or the judge in Illinois who upgraded his Purple Heart Purple Heart U.S. medal awarded to those wounded in military action. [Am. Hist.: Misc.] See : Bravery to a Medal of Honor. Or the New Jersey mayor who resigned in disgrace after Paige debunked him. Working alone the first 40 years, Paige uncovered almost 400 men throughout the country posing as Medal of Honor recipients. Since 1995, with Cottone's help, they found 100 more. ``Most of them get probation, fined, and have to make a public apology,'' Cottone said. ``One guy recently had to write a letter of apology in the local newspaper, and do community service at a veterans hospital. ``Exposing them, embarrassing them, and getting those phony medals out of circulation is better than criminal prosecution,'' he said. Mitch Paige was still looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. the phonies up to the day he died of congestive heart failure congestive heart failure, inability of the heart to expel sufficient blood to keep pace with the metabolic demands of the body. In the healthy individual the heart can tolerate large increases of workload for a considerable length of time. at his home in La Quinta on Saturday, Cottone said. Still fighting for the honor of the medal - the honor of his men. The real heroes. Dennis McCarthy, (818) 713-3749 dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Medal of Honor awardee Col. Mitchell Paige (USMC, ret.), seen here at a Camp Pendleton ceremony in 1999, died at his home Saturday. Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer |
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