Valor and Service
The deed, and then the words the citation used
Each entry gives a short record of one person or unit — who they were, where they served, and what the action was — followed by the citation they received for it, as it was written and presented. The citation is the point: read what the award actually says, in the language of the day, and judge the deed on that.
Alvin York, 82nd Division: The Citation in Full
The action of 8 October 1918 in the Argonne, followed by the citation as written — the captured guns, the prisoners, the rifle work — and what a modern reader should notice about how the document is worded.
Doris Miller at Pearl Harbor: The Citation in Full
A mess attendant who took a machine gun he had never been trained on and fired it at attacking aircraft. What he did, in the record, and how the Navy worded its recognition.
William Carney and the Flag at Fort Wagner: The Citation in Full
The 54th Massachusetts on the parapet, the color sergeant hit, the flag that did not touch the ground — and the citation issued almost four decades later.