Real Heroes

Mark Yost on A Museum Honoring Real Heroes in the Wall Street Journal (sub req):

Veterans Day should be about honoring the sacrifices of everyone who has served in our armed forces. But there's a place designed specifically to remember those who performed exceedingly above and beyond the call of duty. Medal of Honor Museum had long consisted of plaques and storyboards set up on the hangar deck of the USS Yorktown, moored on the Cooper River near Charleston, S.C. Earlier this year, the museum was given a more permanent home here.

The new, more formal entrance features a large wall display, listing all the names -- chronologically, by conflict -- of those who have earned our nation's highest award for valor. Inside, the small museum features storyboards that tell how and why the medal was first created, and how it has evolved over the years. There are interactive kiosks for the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Vietnam and the War on Terror that tell the stories of a handful of the 3,464 men and women who have earned the medal. And there are several interactive stations that let you search the complete database of Medal of Honor recipients by name, service or conflict. Read even just a few of their citations and you realize that we could not possibly build a place majestic or sacred enough to honor their service.