[They have] whatever it takes to go out and do what they did to get the Medal of Honor, whatever it is- the guts, the courage, or whatever. They had the guts, and stupidity too. I didn't have enough sense to come in out of the rain. But I was mad a lot of the time, pissed off. I can truthfully say that I don't remember being scared to death. But I was God damn mad. Anger, hunger, and sex; those are the greatest instincts that we've got. Those are things we are born with. What else is there?
United States Navy Medal of Honor recipient (1909–2010)
Lieutenant John William Finn (24 July 1909 – 27 May 2010) was a sailor in the United States Navy who, as a chief petty officer and aviation ordnanceman, received the United States military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions during the attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II. Though ordnancemen are only responsible for performing maintenance on guns and handling of munitions, Finn – when the Japanese bombed Naval Air Station Kaneohe Bay during the 7 December attack – earned the medal by firing a machine gun from an exposed position throughout the attack, despite being repeatedly wounded. At the time of his death, Finn was the oldest living Medal of Honor recipient, the last living recipient from the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the last living United States Navy recipient of World War II.
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I fired at the Japs for the next two hours and a half. All I did was shoot at every one I could find. You dont knock 'em down out of the air. That plane is doing close to two hundred knots, just a flick, and he's gone. You might not get fifteen or twenty seconds- that's a long blast. I kept firing till the last Jap left, but I did lots of things in between. There were lulls. I said to Sully when he showed up, 'Get those God damn things, those bomb-handling carts, out of here!' And he said a stupid thing: 'Where shall I take 'em?' I said, 'Take 'em out and disperse 'em in the brush. Whatever you do, don't put 'em all in one place. And immediately I went back out and fired some machine gun again. Next time, I come back, there were those God damn things all in the corner. They hadn't been moved. Well, I made up my mind I was gonna kill Sullivan. I thought he lost his nerve and ran out and hid someplace, because there was one or two cases where guys hid in the bushes.
Well, what happened, he had gone off to find the squadron truck. He was doin' exactly what I told him. I didn't have to shoot him. And you could never find that fuckin' truck. Always somebody's got it off somewhere else. He finally traced the truck and come back to the hangar with it, but now he needed the tractor to get the squadron door open. It was a brand-new hangar, and you needed the tractor or all three hundred men in the squadron to open that door.'
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I got the Medal at one PM on September fifteenth, nineteen forty-two, on board the USS Enterprise in Pearl Harbor. It was awarded by Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. He made a good speech. I still remember his words. He said, 'Do not think for an instant that we have the enemy on the run. He is a tough, sagacious, brave, determined enemy.' Then he said, 'But we are making progress,' so that made me happy. Then he come up, praised me, said laudatory remarks about my 'magnificent courage,' one thing and another. I've got a copy of that. But I wasn't courageous. All I was doing, I was pissed off and mad, and I was doing exactly what I thought I would do if there ever come a war. But I never dreamed that I might fight in a war. You didn't think of that. But anyway, he came up to me, and he had kind of a little bit of an old farmer way of talking- you know, he was born and raised in Texas- and he said, 'Finn, it gives me great pleasure to pin, or, ah, hang, this medal around your neck.' I was standing there, of course, I was naturally at attention, here was my admiral. The ship was under repair and there was more racket around there with air hoses and crap all over the deck and banging and hammering everywhere. But during that ceremony, they stopped all the noise. Nimitz gave out twenty-five awards. I was number one in line. I think there were two Navy Crosses, and other awards.