With more than 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients, 39 of those have walked and trained on the grounds of Fort Bragg or Camp Mackall.
But all share the same common honor.
The Medal of Honor is the nation s highest award for valor given to servicemembers.
These are the stories of Fort Bragg s recipients.
Sgt. 1st Class Eugene Ashley Jr. was a soldier with the C Co., 5th Special Forces Group, 1st Special Forces Command, when he died Feb. 7, 1968, in Vietnam.
His mission was to rescue entrapped U.S. Special Forces advisers at Camp Lang Vei.
When communications were lost, Ashley directed airstrikes and artillery support and led five assaults against the enemy exposing himself to enemy grenades, and machine gun and automatic-weapons fire.
Paratroopers played a role in many battles, but not always successfully.
During the Second World War, a new type of military operation was created which allowed armies to strike deep behind enemy lines. Airborne operations, which involved paratroopers and glider-borne infantry, were extremely risky and that is why some daring attempts ended in complete disaster.
Due to that fact, throughout World War II the bulk of paratroopers fought as infantry. However, four operations stand out as being the largest use in airborne forces ever.
Battle of Crete
Following the Axis victories in the Balkans and Greece, German General Kurt Student conceived Operation Merkur (Mercury) to capture the Greek island of Crete, which was being held by more than 40,000 British, Commonwealth and Greek troops.
These are some of the service members whose names are found on the nation’s largest military installation:
Pope Field is named after 1st Lt. Harley H. Pope on April 1, 1919. Pope and his crewman, Sgt. Walter W. Fleming, were killed Jan. 7, 1919, after their plane crashed into the Cape Fear River.
Pike Field is named for Lt. Col. Emory J. Pike, a Medal of Honor recipient who served during World War I.
Butner Road and Butner Primary are named after Maj. Gen. Henry W. Butner, a North Carolinian who served during World War I.
Gruber Road is named after Brig. Gen. Edmund L. Gruber, an artillery officer, who was an assistant commandant of the field artillery school at Camp Bragg and later commander of Camp Bragg. Gruber was a relative of “Silent Night” composer Franz Gruber and later wrote The Caissons Go Rolling Along,” which John Philip Sousa changed into what is now known as “The Army Song.”
Paratroopers raise alarms about COVID contagion amid brigade exercise with Brazilian soldiers February 4 A jumpmaster inspects a paratrooper s chute at Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, Feb. 1, 2021. (Master Sgt. Alexander Burnett/Army) The 82nd Airborne Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team and a company of Brazilian soldiers added a logistical twist to what are normally routine Joint Readiness Training Center rotations in Louisiana, but public health concerns are never far from field exercises these days. As the exercise kicked off, an anonymous letter was published to social media and sent to a local newspaper raising concerns that 3rd Brigade was not taking coronavirus mitigation seriously enough and was ignoring an outbreak emerging during the exercise.
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