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Medal of honor recipient Army Combat Medic Thomas W. Bennett
Episode 2812 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about Army Combat Medic Thomas W. Bennett and his Congressional Medal of Honor award. The featured story appeared on the History Net website and was titled: A Conscientious Objector’s Medal of Honor. This article was written by Edward F. Murphy and originally published in the June 2003 issue of Vietnam Magazine.
In his story Murphy reported that: The Vietnam War presented many young men with a moral dilemma as they became subject to the draft in the late 1960s. These were men whose deep-seated religious convictions held that killing was wrong, even in war. At the same time, a number of them also possessed a strong sense of patriotism and felt that service to one’s country was a vital duty. One youngster torn by those conflicting values was Thomas W. Bennett of Morgantown, West Virginia.
Tom Bennett saw himself as a moderator. Though raised as a Southern Baptist, he openly embraced the validity of all religions — hence his activities in the ecumenical council. He wanted devotees of different religions to share their similarities rather than face off over their differences. To learn more about different religions, he began attending services of different faiths, visiting some churches so often that parishioners thought he was one of them. Through these experiences his belief in the sanctity of human life solidified — a frequent theme when he preached at his own church.
On April 7, 1970, Tom Bennett’s 23rd birthday, President Richard M. Nixon presented his posthumous Medal of Honor to his mother and stepfather. When first notified of the award, Thus Thomas W. Bennett became the only conscientious objector to earn the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War.
Listen to episode 2812 and discover more about Army Combat Medic Thomas W. Bennett and his Congressional Medal of Honor award.
