Medal of Honor recipients. (The Goodness of America).

On May 1st, during an emotional Rose Garden ceremony, President Bush stated that "the United States acknowledges a debt that time has not diminished" as he conferred the Medal of Honor, our nation's highest military commendation, on two servicemen who died in battle during World War II and the Vietnam War.

Mr. Bush described how Army helicopter pilot Captain Jon E. Swanson, during his second tour of duty, was called in to provide close air support for allied ground forces that came under heavy enemy fire in Cambodia on February 26, 1971. Flying at treetop level, Captain Swanson received intense ground fire while locating and engaging the enemy. After running out of heavy ordnance and most of his ammunition, he began dropping smoke grenades to alert other U.S. war planes about enemy positions. He then nursed his heavily damaged helicopter to safety, but immediately volunteered to return to the combat zone and continue marking targets. "Had he stayed on the ground," President Bush noted, "no one would have faulted him." But "he had seen that more targets needed marking to eliminate the danger to the troops on the ground." On that second mission Swanson flew directly into enemy fire until his helicopter exploded in flight.

He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, though the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had recommended the Medal of Honor. A recent review of his file concluded that he clearly deserved the latter honor.

The medal was also given posthumously to Captain Benjamin Louis Salomon, who served as a surgeon with the 27th Infantry Division at Saipan in the Marianas Islands during World War II. On July 7, 1944, five thousand Japanese troops launched a ferocious charge during the Battle of Saipan. Salomon, after killing a number of enemy soldiers, ordered the enlisted medics serving with him in a tent station to evacuate the wounded to a rear area. He stayed behind to further engage enemy forces with both a bayonet equipped rifle and a machine gun that he manned after two machine gunners assigned to defend his aid station were killed. The medics and their patients all made it to safety, but Salomon was found dead at his post the next day, with 98 dead enemy soldiers strewn in front of his position. As best the Army could tell, he was shot 24 times before he fell, and more than 50 times after that.

Captain Salomon has no living relatives. Most credit for the belated recognition of his heroism goes to Calabasas, California, dentist and World War II veteran Robert West. Dr. West learned of Salomon's heroics in 1995 while researching notable University of Southern California alumni (Salomon graduated from the university's dental school in 1937). He then launched what he describes as "a labor of love" to see that Salomon received the Medal of Honor (Salomon had once been nominated for it only to be denied on a technicality). Dr. West's efforts led to discovery of an error in the record that, when corrected, clarified that Salomon was indeed eligible. West accepted the medal on Salomon's behalf during the recent White House ceremony.

Captain Swanson's widow, Sandee, and their two daughters, Holly and Brigid, accepted the award on behalf of their husband and father.