Duane Dewey, Man of Steel

Corporal Duane Edgar Dewey was 21 when he became the first person to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Eisenhower in 1953. For his “service above and beyond the call of duty in Korea,” Dewey was awarded the U.S. Armed Forces highest honor by Eisenhower who, after presenting the medal to him, said, “You must have a body of steel.”

At his home in Hawthorne, Dewey lives with Bertha, his wife of 57 years. Adorned with military plaques, their home is a tribute to the good ‘ole red, white and blue. Bertha, who is a scrapbook hobbyist, has neatly snipped and filed Dewey’s press clippings over the years. Dewey, who has received several awards and even more news coverage, presents his Navy Medal of Honor — the thick blue ribbon fading — and tells the story that precedes it.

In October 1951, Company E landed on Korea’s east coast, north of the 38th parallel. Five months later, Dewey and the first Marine division moved to the west coast, inside a neutral zone in Panmunjeom. It was in this village near the border of North and South Korea where peace talks began in 1952 and eventually where armistice was declared. Dewey said his division could see the peace talks taking place from where they were stationed.

Dewey’s division then moved to outposts of Panmunjeom, where he would earn the nation’s highest award for heroism.

Serving as leader of a machine gun squad, Dewey was stationed with his men at an outpost about a mile from the main line of resistance. One evening, Dewey was talking with another soldier outside when the first grenade hit. He heard it overhead and then heard the inevitable detonation.

He said, “I think that’s a grenade.”

When the second grenade flew overhead, he said, “I know that’s a grenade.”
The division, spread out over the outpost, figured they were surrounded, so they retreated to a more dense formation.

As Dewey watched their ammunition diminish, he decided to go out and search for more. He had just returned to his position when a grenade exploded behind his left heel, tearing the flesh of his upper thigh and buttocks. He was the first to be wounded in his squad.

Dewey hollered to his gunner to take over. As he lay there with shrapnel in his backside, a Navy corpsman — a medic for Marines — leaned over him and shouted, “I’m a corpsman, where’re you hit?”

It was about three in the morning when the second grenade rolled Dewey’s way. He was lying flat on his back with his head facing the enemy and although the sky was black, he knew what was happening; however, the corpsman did not have a clue.

“He was trying to get off my britches to repair the first wounds,” Dewey said.

He pauses in his storytelling and stands up from the table to retrieve something from the shelf behind him. The shelf is adorned with awards and various red, white and blue knick-knacks, but Dewey curls his fist around what looks like a rusting paperweight. But when he brings it back to the table, it is clearly a grenade.

He pulls the pin out and cranks his arm back, saying once the grenade is released, the handle on the side flips up and the countdown begins. Once released, Dewey said it takes about four seconds to detonate, if it is properly loaded. Sometimes, it takes only three.

Dewey’s first impulse was to get rid of the grenade, but since he was lying down, he knew he would not be able to throw it far enough to get it away from his men. In the seconds before detonation, he scooped the grenade under him, hugging it to his right hip as he pulled the corpsman to the ground, saying, “Hit the dirt, doc, I got it in my hip pocket.”

Dewey remembers fading in and out of consciousness. He tried putting his head down to get the blood flowing that way. Another corpsman approached Dewey and gave him a shot of morphine.

Dewey does not recall being moved to the empty bunker where he lay below another soldier, who gurgled blood when he inhaled. Through waves of consciousness, Dewey remembers a corpsman hauling in PFC Johnson, who had 10 bullet wounds scattered across his chest. Johnson was laid beside Dewey, who in turn put his arm around the soldier so he would not roll off the bunker.

“And there we lay,” Dewey said.

Dewey received two blood transfusions before he was flown out by helicopter, which he said made its debut for transporting wounded soldiers during the Korean War. He was taken to two field hospitals, a hospital ship and a hospital in Japan before he made it back to the U.S.

In one of the field hospitals, Dewey started coughing up a muddy-colored substance. When the doctor examining him asked how long it had been since he had had coffee, Dewey told him “about a week.” The doctor poked around and found a bullet lodged above his bladder. Dewey said he must have been hit after he was already down because he did not even feel it.

Bertha, back home in Michigan, said she received a telegram from the government that said her husband was wounded and that additional information would follow. She was mothering their first child, Arline.

A colonel visited the hospital in Hawaii to give Dewey the Purple Heart and asked if he was to receive any other honors. When Dewey told the colonel that his captain was going to recommend him for the Medal of Honor, the colonel looked at him as if he was insane for suggesting the idea. When Dewey wrote home, he told his family of the recommendation, but told them not to tell anyone until it was confirmed.

On March 12, 1953, President Eisenhower decorated Dewey with the Medal of Honor. Bertha was pregnant with their second child, who the Deweys named Dwight, and would refer to as Ike in his youth.

In addition to the Medal of Honor and Purple Heart, Dewey received the Korean Service Medal with two battle stars, the UN Service Medal, and his entire Marine division was recognized with the Presidential Unit Citation.

Corporal Duane Edgar Dewey born Nov. 16 1931 in Grand Rapids, Michigan
Company E, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division

There have been 3,400 Medal of Honor recipients since the award was created in 1861.