The President of the United States
in the name of The Congress
takes pleasure in presenting the

Medal of Honor

to

ORESKO, NICHOLAS

Rank and organization: Master Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company C, 302d Infantry, 94th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Tettington, Germany, 23 January 1945. Entered service at: Bayonne, N.J. Birth: Bayonne, N.J. G.O. No.: 95, 30 October 1945.

Citation:

M/Sgt. Oresko was a platoon leader with Company C, in an attack against strong enemy positions. Deadly automatic fire from the flanks pinned down his unit. Realizing that a machinegun in a nearby bunker must be eliminated, he swiftly worked ahead alone, braving bullets which struck about him, until close enough to throw a grenade into the German position. He rushed the bunker and, with pointblank rifle fire, killed all the hostile occupants who survived the grenade blast. Another machinegun opened up on him, knocking him down and seriously wounding him in the hip. Refusing to withdraw from the battle, he placed himself at the head of his platoon to continue the assault. As withering machinegun and rifle fire swept the area, he struck out alone in advance of his men to a second bunker. With a grenade, he crippled the dug-in machinegun defending this position and then wiped out the troops manning it with his rifle, completing his second self-imposed, 1-man attack. Although weak from loss of blood, he refused to be evacuated until assured the mission was successfully accomplished. Through quick thinking, indomitable courage, and unswerving devotion to the attack in the face of bitter resistance and while wounded, M /Sgt. Oresko killed 12 Germans, prevented a delay in the assault, and made it possible for Company C to obtain its objective with minimum casualties.

 

Nicholas Oresko died yesterday.  He joins a growing number of our World War II veterans who are passing from this world to the next.  Our nation was made better by his presence and that of his comrades. It is our responsibility to earn what they have given us and to make it even better.

20 years ago, American warriors were fighting for their lives, cut off and low on ammunition, food, and water.  Some were already dead; others would die from their wounds before a relief column could get to them.  18 Americans would die in the dust of Mogadishu on October 3 and 4, 1993.  The bodies of heroes Randall Shughart and Gary Gordon were drug through the streets as trophies, and western press obligingly flashed images of the macabre parade for all to see.

In honoring these men, we need to reflect on what we should learn from their sacrifice.  Mogadishu should have been a wake-up call.  Our opponents are not civilized nations, such as Germany or the U.S.S.R.  We are facing, for the most part, a poorly trained, but highly motivated, mob of barbarians.  They will give us no quarter, yet will use our own willingness to offer it as a tool against us.  They will not restrict their war to defeating us on a battlefield.  Rather, they will strike anywhere we seem to be weak, including overtly targeting our children.  What mercy we show them we cannot expect to have reciprocated, and we do so at our own peril.

We should also learn that there are limits to what our military can do, and that when we give them a mission, we should give them all that they need to accomplish it.  Our military is not a social services organization, and should not be used to rebuild failed nations.  At best, the military can be used to provide security for those organizations that are better suited for those tasks.

But they can only do these things when properly equipped and supported.  Had the requests for American armor been honored, then our casualties in Mogadishu would probably have been much smaller.  The blood of those who were killed and wounded because what they needed was sitting in a motor pool in Kuwait or Georgia stains the hands of bureaucrats and politicians in Washington.

The men who fought at Mogadishu were not there as conquerors.  They were there to try to help those who could not help themselves.  Whether or not it was our business to do so can be discussed later.  These men need to be remembered and honored for what they did, not why they were told to do it.  It falls to us to only put them in harm’s way when it is absolutely necessary, and to give them everything they need in order to accomplish their mission and return home, no matter what politics or tender feelings we hurt doing so.

We owe the dead their honor, and we owe the living everything we can give.  Nothing less is sufficient.