Republican (fascist/socialist) President Reagan, in a speech to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, tells the story of a B-17 commander who was posthumously award thee Medal of Honor after voluntarily going down with a trapped crew member, rather than save his own life.  “The last man to leave saw the commander sit down on the floor.  He took the boy’s hand and said ‘Never mind, son, we’ll ride it down together.’”  

       NOTE: This incident never happened, but was from the 1944 fictional war movie, “Wing and a Prayer”; of the 434 Congressional Medals of Honor awarded during the Axis War (World War II) there is not record of a medal awarded for such an act.

       [added 12/3/2022]

       Presidential power of poetic license?  Or just bald-faced propaganda to glorify the militaristic state?  That’s a problem with professional liars, they sometimes can’t tell the fantasy from the facts, or don’t want to.  The true story of the bombardment of Europe is pretty grim; very high casualty rates for very poor results.  The U.S. Army Air Corp’s bomber command was ill equipped to deal with Nazi fighters and wasted between 50% to 80% of its bomb loads on useless targets.  Why didn’t bomber command concentrate on every highway, road, avenue, trail, canal, bridge, railroad track and terminal? It doesn’t matter how much the war factories produce if their bullets, beans and blankets don’t reach the front lines.  (Not to mention the unbombed RR lines that fed the death camps.) Give yourself a problem: You are a bombardier flying at 27,000 feet, in a 1937 model B-17, your target is a railroad bridge.  You’ve got an optical bombsight and a load of dumb iron bombs.  What is the most productive angle of approach? At a right angle to the railroad line or parallel to it? Why did it take so long to develop belly tanks to improve allied fighters’ long range capabilities?  Why was the B-17 designed so that the belly gunner’s ball-turret couldn’t be easily exited in flight?  Many crash-landed, wheels up, on their return to England and guess who helped grease the runways? Trapped belly gunners—so much for the “Flying Fortress.”  I saw that movie as a new release and thought at the time it was great patriotic message.  But what did I know about governments and war at 10?  I confess, I was a Cub Scout and a flag waver; my brother was in the South Pacific as a Navy Seabee (CB).  –– JL