by Jon Erwin
I thought about that, about the idea that the essence of the Medal of Honor reaches far beyond the military. Its story and its meaning should reach into the heart of every American. After all, our country is bound together, not by geography or race, but by ideas and common dreams. We are a land of immigrant dreamers. We are diverse, as our national motto reminds us, “out of many, one.” What binds us together is a set of ideas and ideals. Common virtues unite us. And to the extent that we forget those virtues, to the extent we do not pass them down through stories, we lose the ties that bind us.
One of the greatest virtues that makes us Americans is the simple idea of going above and beyond. The simple virtue of doing things others would consider unwise or impossible, all for the sake of those you love. As Jesus said, “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles” (Matt. 5:41). My grandfather did more than what was required of him, as did all those who received the same award. And this is a concept we can all remember and we can all apply. And we can remember that beyond courage is love.
Today, I am inspired by Red Erwin’s devotion to his wife, his family, and his brothers in arms and how he dedicated his life to the service of others. I am inspired by how he embodied the medal’s heritage of honor, self-sacrifice, and going further, above and beyond the call of duty.
I am inspired by his love for the United States. He always said the great thing about our country is that it is imperfect, and that we have the power to make it better and leave it a better place for our children. He loved America and all it stands for, with all its problems and imperfections, and he often noted that freedom isn’t free.
One of the things I love about America is that it is imperfect. And we are free to point that out, argue over it, and try to make it better. I believe America is the greatest idea in the history of nations, the idea that we can choose a government for ourselves, that we can find unity in the face of our diversity. What a radical thought, that we can be bound together by our differences, since so many of us, in the scheme of things, are from fairly recent immigrant families. America is one vast, unfinished work. It was built that way.
The Founding Fathers’ idea of “all men are created equal” was such a radical idea for its time. We can’t take the next step in reaching for those ideals unless we understand our own story and understand our legacy and understand our heritage and understand the lessons of our ancestors. If we don’t take the time to look in the rearview mirror and study the generations that came before us and the history of the country, we are in danger of becoming a rudderless ship.
I am inspired by Red Erwin’s faith in God. I am a believer in Jesus Christ, and I find great meaning, purpose, direction, and spiritual nourishment from that belief. I’m not someone who claims to understand it all, because I don’t think we can fully understand the divine, but I’ve thrown my lot in with the words in red, namely, Jesus’s words in the Bible, on a very personal level. You don’t have to totally understand something to believe it. I’ve chosen to believe it.
I think sometimes, as Christians, we need to be witnesses more than judges, and I can only witness. I got this from my grandfather and father, two very devout men. Jesus is a huge part of the life of my family, and I believe Red embodied many of the lessons that Jesus taught.
As my father explained to me, “There’s a lot of pressure that comes with a Medal of Honor, and a lot of guys couldn’t handle it. Because once you get it, it’s yours for your life, and you can either choose to adapt to the pressure, and it molds your character, or you can fight it all of your life. Dad chose to embrace it and live up to all the ideals that were expected of it. He chose to represent the military with respect and with dignity and that you would distinguish yourself as an American citizen wearing that medal. And so he practiced that all his life, to live up to the idea of honor. He always told the truth. He always talked highly of America. He would always say America is the greatest nation on the face of the earth. He was always giving and sacrificing and always trying to promote and take care of veterans. He became a walking embodiment of what the Medal of Honor was all about. He remained a lifelong believer in Jesus. He always credited God for saving his life.”
These days, whenever I’m faced with a difficulty in my life or my business, I think to myself, Well, this can’t be harder than carrying a detonating phosphorus bomb under my arm, saving twelve people’s lives, being of service to tens of thousands of sick and wounded veterans, and living with the aftermath of massive burn injuries for fifty-seven years. I just keep going! Red’s story shows that you can push yourself and do things that people say you can’t do, things that may seem impossible.
Today my brother and I are partners in a thriving entertainment business, and we strive to be of service to others by telling stories that have the power to uplift and inspire people. In our day-to-day work, the memory and lessons of Red Erwin inspire us with the ideals of endurance and perseverance, of pushing ourselves toward something that we believe is right and worth fighting for. The difference between success and failure can be when an individual chooses to quit. And I’ve found that the people who are successful are the people who can go above and beyond. I learned that from my grandfather.
And finally, Red’s story teaches me of the true, limitless power of prayer. No matter who you are—a president of the United States, a regular mom, a dad, or a twenty-three-year-old soldier who wants nothing more than to come home to be with your true love—in the absolute darkest moments of your life, a prayer to God can create a miracle.
As for me, I’ve learned that the Medal of Honor given to my grandfather is his and his alone. It will never be mine, and I don’t have to live under its shadow. But all the things the medal stands for—courage, self-sacrifice, faith, love, honor—form the legacy that my grandfather Red Erwin and grandmother Betty have given to me.
And I accept it gladly.
AFTERWORD
In His Own Words
[This is how Red recalled his postwar life in his own words that I found in notes, interviews, and oral histories over the years during my fifteen-year quest to research his life.]
I went to work for the Veterans Administration in January 1948 when I got out of the military. Harry Truman had issued an executive order that any Medal of Honor recipient otherwise qualified was eligible for a veterans benefits job. I knew that the TCI company would never give me my job back at the steel plant due to the loss of my arm. I went to work for the Veterans Administration as a veterans benefits counselor. I did that for thirty-seven years, and I retired with forty-three and a half years of combined federal service. I loved the military. Even though I was severely burned, if they had retained me, I would have stayed in.
I handled all veterans claims, informing them of their rights and benefits and privileges under the laws that were passed by the Congress concerning compensation, pension, GI loans, housing, schooling, automobiles, hospitalization, outpatient treatment, you name it, and I was familiar with all of it. In fact, I enjoyed it very well. I would leave my house at 4:30 in the morning and I would be working at 5:00, even though I was my own boss for the last twenty-five years.
Having the Medal of Honor, which says “above and beyond,” I always felt that I wanted to excel at my job. And I will be very frank, I’m not bragging—I did excel in it! I really enjoyed my work. I got outstanding ratings every year for the last twenty-five years.
There was deep satisfaction in helping veterans, young and old, with their problems, especially a fellow veteran, or help a widow get the benefits they are entitled to by law, to go around the obstacles and get it for them.
I have been approached by people that I know wanted to use me as a Medal of Honor recipient in their political campaigns, and I’ve been approached by quite a few unscrupulous individuals. But I would just tell them that the Medal of Honor is not for sale, that it was given to me by a government that I was grateful for. It’s not for sale.
I’m proud of it. But being a recipie
nt of a Medal of Honor calls for you to be in the right place at the right time. Everyone watches you, wondering if you’re going to break the traditions that go along with being a recipient of the medal. You try to watch your p’s and q’s and try to live up to it. I hope I have.
I have made statements about the Korean and Vietnam Wars, that if we are going to kill fifty-five thousand American boys, and we are going to injure three hundred thousand more, we shouldn’t have these type wars. If we are going to go to war, we should declare war and go end it, get it over with. In World War II we had the leaders, we had the logistics, and we had brave men in the right place at the right time, the kind of men who won the war for us in World War II.
The flyboys got all the credit, but actually you couldn’t get that aircraft off the ground or get it back safely unless you had good ground crews. And we had crews that were just superb. Just think, in forty-eight hours they were loading bombs, putting in about 5,000 or 6,000 gallons of gasoline, checking the machine guns and everything. It was just a superb accomplishment. It was to me, probably one of the best activities in the war, how the maintenance crews and everybody else worked together in unison to get this war over as quickly as possible and get home.
Leadership is one of these things that is set by example. In other words, it’s like a father-son relationship. You’ve got to live that life before them that will convince them you are valid, and not a hypocrite.
I have a son who was a minister and a son-in-law who is a minister and a brother who was a minister. I know my son is one of the best individuals and God-fearing men I know. He is a truly dedicated Christian. I have had four children, all of them have finished college, two of them have master’s degrees. This is something I’ve tried to give them that I wasn’t able to get during my coming-up years.
They made a fuss about my being a hero. It didn’t occur to me at the time. I knew the flare was burning and I had to get it out of there!
I am not a hero. The real heroes are those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for this country, those who have given their lives. They’re the ones who deserve the medals. I am only a survivor. I don’t wear the Medal of Honor for what I did, I wear it for everyone who served.
We should take care of America because it’s a great nation, and it deserves to be protected, loved, cherished, and passed on. We have more freedoms in this country than we realize. But if the youngsters will look and see what price has been paid, they’ll realize freedom is not free.
I survived. So the best thing to do is always make the best of what you have. Life is what you make it. Life is beautiful.
My belief has always been if anything is worth doing, then do your best, because I believe there’s a silver cloud ahead. Like a motto I once heard, “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Jesus is my savior. He got me through, and He never lets me down.
Henry Eugene “Red” Erwin (Erwin Family Collection)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE AUTHORS WISH TO THANK HENRY E. ERWIN, Betty Erwin, Henry E. Erwin Jr., Andrew Erwin, Ray Erwin, Karen Erwin Brown, Nancy Erwin Herndon, Bette Erwin Cobb, Mark Ray, Webster Younce, Sujin Hong, Mel Berger, David Hinds, Naomi Moriyama, Brendan Doyle, Marie Louise Doyle, Pershing Youngkin, Herb Schnipper, Hap Halloran, Orville Blackburn, Ray Clanton, Carl Barthold, Shizuyo Takeuchi, Jeffrey Hester, Geneva Robinson, David Barillo, James Holmes, Randy Kearns, Alan Dimick, and Uri Aviv.
APPENDIX
Seven Prayers
PRAYER WAS THE FOUNDATION OF MY GRANDFATHER’S life, and today prayer is the pillar of my family’s life.
America has always been a land that is nourished and guided by prayer on the part of citizens, patriots, clergy, children, warriors, and presidents. These prayers have been made in our houses of worship, homes, cities, and villages, as well as on distant battlefields.
America itself is a prayer, a fervent hope by humanity for freedom, peace, and prosperity in a world of dangers, unknowns, and boundless possibilities. The Native Americans who tended the land for centuries were sustained by countless forms of personal prayers and group prayer ceremonies. The first European settlers to arrive on these shores often fell to their knees with prayers of thanks and inspiration. Then and now, the spiritual lifeblood of our nation is constantly renewed with the prayers of Americans from every corner of the earth.
Prayer, in fact, has played a vital role not only in the daily lives of countless Americans but, it has, on several occasions, helped shape history during some of our greatest national turning points, when presidents have turned to the ultimate source for help: God.
In each of these seven critical moments, when the life and death of nations hung in the balance, God delivered nothing less than a miracle. America is, in a sense, the story of seven prayers.
The First Prayer
The American Revolution was a desperate seven-year prayer for miraculous deliverance through biblical-scale trials and catastrophes, orchestrated by “prayer-in-chief” George Washington.
At the dawn of the Revolution, when colonial troops faced starvation, despair, multiple defeats, and hopeless odds, General Washington prayed to God for deliverance and urged his men to do so. He declared June 12, 1775, as a national day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, and that proclamation was endorsed by the Continental Congress under its president, John Hancock.
On May 15, 1776, Washington publicly asked God to “pardon all our manifold sins1 and transgressions, and to prosper the arms of the United Colonies, and finally establish the peace and freedom of America upon a solid and lasting foundation.”
In the depths of the winter of 1777, Washington and his army, suffering great misfortunes, prayed to God for deliverance at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
In time, their prayers were answered. The ragtag armies of the fledgling thirteen colonies eventually won a miraculous victory over the vastly superior British Army. The United States was literally a “republic of miracles.” Moments after General Washington announced the end of hostilities with Great Britain on April 18, 1783, he directed all the military chaplains of the new nation to “render thanks to almighty God.”
The Second Prayer
In 1787, when George Washington presided over a stormy Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia that seemed on the verge of collapsing, Benjamin Franklin announced, “Gentlemen, I suggest that we have a word of prayer.”2
Franklin reminded the delegates, “In the beginning of the Contest with Great Britain,3 when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for Divine protection.” According to Dwight Eisenhower, “Strangely enough, after a bit of prayer4 the problems began to smooth out and the convention moved to the great triumph that we enjoy today—the writing of our Constitution.”
At the moment Washington was inaugurated5 as president on April 30, 1789, he announced, “My fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to His charge.”
Since the birth of America, this nation has been built, shaped, and inspired by moments when American presidents have begged for divine intervention and relied on the power of prayer. Many of these presidents were not overtly religious, but they often harbored strong spiritual beliefs.
Many of the Founding Fathers and the presidents who followed were careful to separate church and state, while simultaneously relying on their own spiritual beliefs and values in steering our government. During his presidency, for example, Thomas Jefferson cut, pasted, and rewrote standard Bible passages into a text more to his liking, one that left out Jesus’s virgin birth, resurrection, and supernatural miracles, while keeping the ethical teachings and the power of pray
er.
The Third Prayer
Abraham Lincoln endowed the Civil War with sacred meaning, and he prayed for God’s help in winning the war and for signs of God’s will on the issue of emancipating America’s slaves.
Before the war, on a freezing February day in 1861, as he boarded a train to Washington, President-elect Lincoln told a crowd in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois: “I now leave, not knowing when,6 or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail.”
In September 1862, after Union forces drove the Southern army from Antietam Creek in Maryland back into Virginia, Lincoln gathered his cabinet and made a startling announcement: “God had decided this question in favor of the slaves.”7 Lincoln took the victory at Antietam as the divine signal he’d been searching for. On New Year’s Day 1863, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing those slaves within the borders of the Confederacy. Lincoln explained, “I’ve been driven many times to my knees8 by the overwhelming conviction that I have nowhere else to go.”
On March 30, 1863, Lincoln proclaimed a “National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer.” He feared “the awful calamity of civil war” may have been “a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people.” He bluntly declared, “We have forgotten God.” Three months after Lincoln and millions of other Americans heeded this presidential call to prayer, the Union army won the Battle of Gettysburg and the siege of Vicksburg, turning the tide of the war. Later that year, Lincoln revived what is now an annual tradition of issuing a presidential proclamation of thanksgiving. He asked God to “heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and Union.”
