Medal of Honor

More than 40 million Americans have served

in the United States armed forces.

Of those, fewer than 3,600 have been awarded the military's highest honor.

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Where did we find such men?

We find them where we've always found them.

In our villages and towns,

on our city streets, in our shops, and on our farms.

Summoned a degree of courage

that stirs wonder and respect

and an overpowering pride in all of us.

It recognizes gallantry that goes

above and beyond the call of duty.

We may not always hear of their success,

but they are there, in the thick of the fight, in the dark of night,

achieving their mission.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.

My fellow Americans,

powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded together

to make war upon the whole human race.

We didn't want to get in it,

but we are in it,

and we're going to fight it

with everything we've got.

World War II really... truly showcased who we were as a nation.

It changed who we were as a country. It changed our identity.

I am an American. I come from Brooklyn, New York.

I am an American. Fairview, Montana.

I am an American. I come from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

-I am an American. -I am an American.

I am an American.

They're called "The Greatest Generation" because everyone fought.

If you weren't out there wearing a uniform, fighting,

you were out there in the factories,

building equipment so that these individuals could

successfully and safely accomplish their mission.

I have said, not once, but many times

that I have seen war...

and that I hate war.

After years of war, and suffering, and degradation,

the Italian people are, at last, coming to the day of liberation

from their real enemies, the Nazis.

We must drive the Germans out of Italy

as we have driven them out of Tunisia and Sicily.

It was felt that we needed to knock Italy out of the war,

to deprive Germany of one of its last allies,

so we headed for Anzio in January of '44.

The idea was that this invasion would unhinge the German lines

and eventually lead the Allies to Rome.

Unfortunately, they got bottled up by the Germans.

It just turned into a big killing ground, a big battle of attrition.

They were losing about 800 men a day in this Anzio beachhead.

Just from shelling, from sniping.

From, you know, just random German fire.

So they're kind of stuck there, literally shrinking day by day by day,

and the guys are like, "We don't know how we're gonna get out of here.

How can possibly break out, because our force is getting smaller and smaller."

So, morale is definitely... suffering.

The Germans are just trying to contain this beachhead

and make the Allies pay as dearly for the ground as they can

without being able to expand it.

The only way to rescue yourself

from this German defensive fire was to move forward,

disrupt the German line, and push them back.

Fortunately, the Germans are getting smaller and smaller, too,

because one thing the Americans have massive superiority in,

on the Anzio beachhead, is artillery.

The German strength was thinning because of casualties,

so we thought there's a good opportunity to break out of this beachhead,

so that they could move on Rome.

Well, Sergeant Antolak was part of a large operation

that was trying to break out of the beachhead,

trying to penetrate the defensive lines of the Germans

and finally open up that path to Rome.

The key to breaking the encirclement

around Anzio was the town of Cisterna.

Once you got to Cisterna, there were a lot of directions you could go

and you really had burst out of the confinement of the beachhead.

Sergeant Antolak's platoon was going out first.

They'd had a rough day on the 23rd.

They'd been fighting through the defenses, they had made progress.

They got up to an important railroad embankment on the morning of the 24th.

They had taken the time-- They were protected behind the embankment,

so they could get down there under cover and regroup,

get some food, stock up on ammunition.

Sergeant Antolak was a squad leader,

so I'm sure he had his ten or so men around him,

and was telling them what they were gonna do for that morning,

and the platoon was getting together and the company was getting ready to jump off,

really into the teeth of Cisterna's defenses.

See anything?

I can see there's still no cover once we leave this wall.

Sylvester Antolak,

his story is one of those that's just incredible.

Honestly, I kinda look at it as saying, like, this is not true.

No way a human being could go through what he went through and do what he did.

That's why I just find it funny that

I am part of that society as a Medal of Honor recipient.

There's no way what I did is comparable to what this incredible human being did.

He enlisted in the Army in July 1941,

before the war has really kicked off, before Pearl Harbor, so he's obviously

patriotic and thinking about the future and the necessity to serve.

This is a modest man

from a small farming community in Ohio, he's of Polish heritage.

He grew up on a farm.

Ten brothers and sisters.

Growing up in that large family, you have to learn how to work with each other.

You learn that you have this love for your brothers and sisters.

He brought that with him to the fight that these are my brothers next to me

and I'm not going to

let them die here today.

Sergeant Antolak and his men

have experienced an existence

where they're under constant threat.

They're just trying to get through each moment they're under fire,

each hour, each day,

each night. It's miserable.

They're just trying to survive.

This is an infantryman's existence at its very toughest.

The night before, they had fought

a horrendous battle all night and it took quite a few casualties.

You know, the next morning, it's...

they got orders from high command saying, "Hey, go out there and

cross over this railroad, take over this town, and kick out the Germans."

You just saw some really horrible things and you lost a lot of friends, and...

you didn't have time to take a breath,

and you're back at it.

I get a smoke?

The waiting's the hardest part.

What's the easy part?

When I was ten,

there was this bully in my school.

He bullied everybody.

So, I guess,

one day it was my turn.

I knew he was waiting for me after school.

I remember staring at the clock,

hoping that the day would never end.

But, uh...

it did.

And, uh...

then I pissed in my pants.

And, uh...

I went out to face him.

But my brothers were already beating on that poor kid.

Krauts are just bullies.

Leading soldiers in combat is really

the greatest privilege and the most awesome of responsibilities.

It can put entire units, entire armies at risk.

At the level of Sergeant Antolak's leadership,

he realizes that

every direction that he gives, every order,

could result in someone being exposed to enemy fire.

All right, First Squad, out!

Sergeant Antolak and his unit are part of the spearhead

that's supposed to lead the Third Infantry Division

in an encirclement of Cisterna.

The Germans had machine gun

firing points scattered all through the whole area in depth.

The Germans know how important it is. It's a major stronghold.

By breaking through at Cisterna, the American armies can completely unhinge

the German defensive line, so they can take Rome.

There was a lot of symbolic significance of Rome.

It would be the first major axis capital to fall.

But first, they have to take Cisterna.

The roughest part of the battle was about to come.

Germans have a lot of advantages.

When you're on the defensive, you have already been there for a while,

you understand the terrain,

you've picked out the best places to set up your security,

so they absolutely have the advantage in this situation.

They're across.

Move out!

Yes, sir.

Not everybody loves each other in a combat unit,

but they all have to rely on one another.

Your life depends on everybody else in your unit.

Every soldier in there has to rely on the other guy to do his job.

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Contact!

Those sons of bitches waited to cut us in half!

A surprise is everything in small unit actions.

It's common for the enemy to let the lead element go through,

and then the enemy can ambush them.

How far out are they?

About 200 yards.

Those Krauts want us to leave First Squad out there.

We're not leaving anyone out there!

Sergeant Antolak understands

that the only way we support First Squad is by having us, Second Squad,

get up and take out the enemy.

But if we all get up and start running towards this machine gun,

we're gonna get killed.

You see the fear in their eyes and they start doubting themselves.

They start doubting their own team.

You do have to improvise, at times, to the situation,

and that's...

most likely what he was trying to think about:

"How do I improvise this situation? How do I...