A New 'Valor Trail' Will Connect Historic Medal of Honor Sites from All Eras

Rodolfo "Rudy" Hernandez joined the Army at age 17 and became a paratrooper in 1948. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, he was sent to Korea with the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. From there, his life changed forever.

On May 31, 1951, Hernandez and his company found themselves outnumbered by Chinese Communist troops on a hill near Wonton-ni, taking heavy artillery, mortar and small arms fire. With the Americans running out of ammo, the Chinese rushed them in an effort to take the hill. Hernandez fired into them until a cartridge exploded and disabled his rifle.

That didn't stop him from defending his fellow soldiers. Wounded, he charged at the oncoming Chinese troops with his bayonet, killing six and turning the oncoming enemy around, allowing his comrades to retake the lost ground. Hernandez passed out from his grenade, bayonet and bullet wounds.

For his bravery in the face of the enemy, Hernandez was awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor the United States can bestow. It was presented to him by President Harry Truman at the White House in 1952.

There are thousands of stories of American valor in the face of the enemy, each worthy of the nation's highest honor. But the thousands of Medal of Honor citations don't tell the whole story of those who received the award.

A new initiative from the American Battlefield Trust and the Congressional Medal of Honor Society is out to change that.

In the more than 160 years since the Medal of Honor was first created, the U.S. has awarded 3,530 Medals of Honor to deserving American troops. The Medal of Honor Valor Trail seeks to bring together hometowns, battlefields, cemeteries, museums and any other site that connects a Medal of Honor story to a tangible place.

Using both a physical trail across the country and a digital presence to enhance the experience, the trail aims to keep history alive and teach compelling lessons about those who received the nation's highest honor, from the Civil War to today.

In 2019, the two organizations collaborated on the Civil War Medal of Honor database, an interactive map on the American Battlefield Trust's website that marks the location and tells the story of each of the Civil War's more than 1,500 Medal of Honor recipients. This database also included what biographical information was available about the recipient.

While working on this project, both organizations realized the effort could go much further, connecting all 3,530 recipients from the Civil War to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and beyond. While the original Civil War database included just the battlefields, sites of the Medal of Honor action, the Valor Trail will be open to include any site that will make these stories more physically accessible to the American public.

Rodolfo Hernandez was one of eight children born to a Mexican-American farmworker in California. To join the Army at such a young age, he needed their consent, which they gave.

After the war, Hernandez married and had three children and worked for the Veterans Administration. As he worked to regain movement in his right arm, he also learned to write with his left hand, both handicaps the result of his Korean War wounds. He eventually met the medic who saved his life near Wonton-ni the day he fought off a Chinese charge before he died in 2013.

The Valor Trail seeks to make stories like Hernandez's more tangible by elevating these biographical places to include plaques and markers, along with digital history. Hernandez's battlefield might be on the Korean Peninsula, but

From his childhood home to his final resting place at Sandhills State Veterans Cemetery near Fayetteville, North Carolina, any of the biographical sites from Hernandez's life are eligible to be official sites along the Valor Trail.

"We need these places to keep reminding us of those who gave more than any of us," Hershel "Woody" Williams, the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from World War II, said in a statement. "We, as a country, can't forget. We should never forget what their sacrifices have made possible."

To learn more about the Valor Trail or nominate a Medal of Honor-connected site to include along the trail, visit the official Valor Trail website.

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook.

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