Reply #17: And here is a picture of him with Obama last year:

[progressoid]

WWII veteran and Bronze Star recipient Joe Medicine Crow speaks to Barack Obama during Obama's visit to Billings, Mont. The crow Indian chief, who wore war paint beneath his World War II uniform and went on to become an acclaimed Native American historian\



In 1939, Medicine Crow became the first of his tribe to receive a master's degree, in anthropology. He is the Crow's sole surviving war chief, an honor bestowed for a series of accomplishments during World War II including hand-to-hand combat with a German solider, whose life Medicine Crow spared.

He also stole dozens of horses from a Nazi camp and retrieved dynamite while under fire that was used to attack German guns.

After the war, he became tribal historian for the Crow and lectured extensively on the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Medicine Crow's grandfather served as a scout for the doomed forces of Gen. George Armstrong Custer.

He was nominated for the presidential medal by U.S. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana and former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming.

Simpson, who first met Medicine Crow more than 60 years ago, said Thursday that there was "no mystery to how he was nominated."

"There's a spectacular background to what he's done — his leadership and the war experiences and his love of people in the tribe," Simpson said.

...

Medicine Crow in 2008 was awarded a Bronze Star and, from the French government, the National Order of the Legion of Honor. He was nominated last year for the Congressional Gold Medal.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32221823/