Paul Ray Smith

Continuing our Memorial Day 2005 salute to the fallen, this post from February 2005 tells the story of Paul Ray Smith, the first American warrior to have his heroism recognized with the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq.

"Meet" Paul Smith and his buddy Greg Harris:

Smith was born in September 1969 in El Paso, Texas, and grew up in Tampa.

Harris, 32, met him at south Tampa's Corona Playground more than 20 years ago. They spent their time playing football, riding bikes and listening to Top 40 music on Q105.

``He was a straight-up, honest guy,'' said Harris, who doesn't recall Smith ever getting into trouble.

Smith was a pack rat, collecting marbles, screws, and other odds and ends. As an adult, he steered toward anything with bald eagles or Marilyn Monroe on it.

He was a curious youngster, too. He would take a radio apart and then put it back together. There would be parts left over, but the radio would work.

After graduating from Tampa Bay Technical High School in 1989, Smith enlisted in the Army. Harris drove him to boot camp. After that, Harris did not see him more than once or twice a year when he would come home on leave.

The reunions weren't all fun and games, however. During one, Smith spent three of his four days off putting cabinets in a new glass and mirror shop that Harris and his father had opened on Busch Boulevard.

Harris last saw Smith in November 2002 when their families went for a day trip to Savannah, Ga. Smith said he likely would go to Iraq if there was a war, and that he would be on the front lines.

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Lisa DeVane, Smith's sister, said Army life suited her brother. To him, issues were framed in black or white, right or wrong. There were no shaded areas.

Smith served during the first Persian Gulf War, and it was a life-altering experience, DeVane said in an e-mail in June.

``I think it stripped him of any innocence he had left of boyhood, and he became a man of driven purpose,'' she said.

As he moved up the ranks, Smith drilled his troops incessantly on the need to be prepared, to be ready for any situation and to watch each other's backs.

Smith did not talk in detail about his first combat experience, but DeVane recalled one story he told her.

As the war began, thousands of Iraqi civilians began fleeing the country and were put up in tents. One of the refugees was a young mother who clutched her baby tight. After a few days, Smith realized the child was dead, and the woman could not bear to let it go.

``It broke his heart,'' DeVane said.

In the second Persion Gulf War, during the battle for control of Baghdad's airport, Smith's unit was attacked while building a holding pen for Iraqi POWs:

Paul Smith, with Bravo Company of the 11th Engineer Battalion from Fort Stewart, Ga., was helping build a holding pen for a growing number of prisoners when he climbed aboard an armored personnel carrier and manned its a .50-caliber machine gun to cover the withdrawal of engineering, medical and command troops.

Smith fired more than 300 rounds and the ceramic breast plate in his flak jacket was shattered as he took return fire from automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

Then,

Smith, 33, was hit in the neck by a single gunshot. He died less than an hour later.

Smith's actions allowed injured soldiers to be evacuated and others to escape the enemy fire, according to the Army's account of the battle.

He was the only American who died in the attack. And soon Smith's actions will been recognized with the Medal of Honor, the first such since MSG Gary Gordon and SFC Randall Shughart received posthumous awards for their actions in Somalia.

Lt. Col. Thomas Smith, no relation, Tuesday notified the soldier's wife, Birgit, that President Bush would present the nation's highest award to her and their children, Jessica, 18, and David, 10, at a White House ceremony, possibly in March.

No official announcement had yet been made by the Pentagon as of Wednesday. ``This is a guy whose whole life experience seemed building toward putting him in the position where he could something like this,'' Thomas Smith told the St. Petersburg Times on Tuesday. ``He was demanding on his soldiers all the time and was a stickler for all the things we try to enforce. It's just an amazing story.''

(Original post: 2005-02-06 16:17:03)