My wife hates this, but it's a fact. I was originally written up for the Navy Cross... I was thinking it would get pushed down, maybe to a Silver Sta… - William R. Charette

The next thing you know I was called to another area and platoon... I don't know what happened to their corpsman, but I was in amongst them and it was decided they were going to be the frontal assault unit... When they told us to start going forward I thought, "I'll wait until my platoon catches up." But the sergeant stood up. He had a machine gun and his words were very encouraging: "Okay men, move out, because if they don't kill you I will." So with those words of encouragement I moved forward with his platoon.

[Regarding his Medal of Honor citation] It says I removed my bulletproof vest and put it on somebody... I did not take off a bulletproof vest. I had a jacket, and I was treating the guy for shock, and what I did was put my jacket on him. And somehow that got misinterpreted and whatever.

They had a big thing about World War One, World War Two, and then they skipped right over to Vietnam... I don't understand that, because 54,000 Americans lost their lives in Korea... So your odds of getting killed in Korea are a hell of a lot greater [than in Vietnam]... And there's still eight thousand missing from the Korean War.