![\"Portrait](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/d\/d0\/Van_T._Barfoot_-_1965.jpg\/960px-Van_T._Barfoot_-_1965.jpg\")
\n2nd Lt, U.S. Army \u2014 World War II<\/strong><\/p>\n Van Thomas Barfoot was born on June 15, 1919, in Edinburg, Mississippi, and enlisted in the U.S. Army from Carthage, Mississippi, in 1940. After early service with the 1st Infantry Division and an amphibious headquarters command, he joined the 157th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division \u2014 the “Thunderbird” Division \u2014 and fought through the amphibious landings in Sicily, at Salerno, and at Anzio during the Italian campaign, rising to technical sergeant.<\/p>\n On the morning of May 23, 1944, near Carano, Italy, Barfoot asked permission to lead a squad against the German line \u2014 ground he knew well from the patrols he had run. Moving alone through a minefield, following ditches and depressions, he crawled up to a machine-gun nest on the enemy flank and knocked it out with a hand grenade. Working down the trench line with his Thompson submachine gun, he destroyed a second gun, took the crew of a third prisoner as they surrendered, and captured seventeen German soldiers in all while killing eight.<\/p>\n Later that same day, when the Germans counterattacked with three tanks directly at his platoon’s positions, Barfoot seized a bazooka, took up an exposed position in front of the advancing armor, and disabled the lead tank with his first shot from 75 yards; as its crew bailed out, he killed three of them with his submachine gun, and the other two tanks turned away. He then advanced into enemy territory to destroy an abandoned German artillery piece, and on his way back, though exhausted, he helped carry two of his seriously wounded men 1,700 yards to safety.<\/p>\n Barfoot was commissioned a second lieutenant and received the Medal of Honor from Lt. Gen. Alexander Patch in \u00c9pinal, France, on September 28, 1944, choosing a ceremony in the field so his soldiers could attend. He went on to serve in the Korean War and the Vietnam War, logged more than 177 combat flight hours as an aviator, and retired as a colonel in 1974. In 2009, at age 90, he won a widely publicized fight with his homeowners’ association for the right to fly the American flag from a flagpole in his own yard. He died on March 2, 2012, in Richmond, Virginia, and in 2023 Fort Pickett, Virginia, was renamed Fort Barfoot in his honor.<\/p>\n Sources: Wikipedia<\/a> \u00b7 Congressional Medal of Honor Society<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n