WASHINGTON — When President Barack Obama expressed pride in America’s men and women in uniform, he was speaking about those who hours earlier had killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and those who six decades earlier had given their lives in the Korean War.
During a ceremony Monday in the White House East Room, Obama bestowed the Medal of Honor posthumously on two Army privates — Anthony T. Kaho’ohanohano of Pukalani, Hawaii, and Henry Svehla of Belleville, N.J.
Kaho’ohanohano was in charge of a machine- gun squad Sept. 1, 1951, when it was overrun by enemy forces. He ordered the squad to fall back and seek cover, then gathered up some grenades and fought the enemy alone. When his ammunition ran out, he fought them hand-to- hand until he was killed.
Svehla, a rifleman, charged enemy positions when his platoon began to falter under heavy fire June 12, 1952. He destroyed enemy positions and inflicted heavy casualties, but when an enemy grenade landed among a group of his comrades, he threw himself on the grenade and was fatally wounded.
