Paul Ray Smith, 2005 News

U.S. Army sergeant, was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for bravery in battle, in April. Smith and several dozen soldiers were constructing a makeshift jail for captured Iraqi prisoners near the Baghdad airport in 2003 when they were attacked by about 100 of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard. Smith grabbed a machine gun and fired at the enemy until he was himself shot and killed. President Bush remarked, “From a completely exposed position, he killed as many as 50 enemy soldiers as he protected his men.” Only three soldiers have received the medal since Vietnam.