[The following is in regards to the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific Theatre of World War II.]
Corpsman George Wahlen, twenty, of Ogden, Utah, was one of those. He was finally pulled off the field after refusing to leave his comrades even though he had suffered the third of three serious wounds. The first, a grenade blast on February 26, had temporarily blinded him in one eye; he ignored it, as well as the other grenades that sent fragments through his butt and legs. On March 2 a mortar shell tore a hunk of flesh from his right shoulder; he kept on ministering to wounded men around him. Finally, on March 3, a mortar splintered his right leg. “I heard other guys crying for help,” Wahlen told me years later. “I tried to walk over to them but couldn’t. I bandaged myself up and gave myself a shot of morphine.” With his foot barely attached to his leg, he crawled fifty yards to give first aid to another fallen boy before he was pulled from the battle.
”Why?” I asked Medal of Honor recipient George Wahlen.
”Because I cared for my buddies,” he answered.
Source:
Bradley, James, and Ron Powers. “Like Hell with the Fire Out.” Flags of Our Fathers. Bantam Dell, a Division of Random House, Inc., 2006. 234. Print.
Further Reading:
In the end, most personal sacrifices are for buddies.