Talk:Paul Ray Smith

Medal Picture
I was just wondering why the MOH image beside his photograph shows the Navy MOH and not the Army MOH? I'm not familiar with HTML or even wikipedia for that matter, but I think it needs to be changed to reflect the actual medal he was awarded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.144.196.195 (talk) 06:06, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * You're right, it was the wrong medal. I've replaced it with an image of the Army version. jwillbur 21:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Photos
Hey yall, I found a photo we can use on the article: http://www4.army.mil/OCPA/uploads/large/OCPA-2005-03-29-152933.jpg

A whole group of images from the Army can be found at http://www4.army.mil/armyimages/index.php?range=all&search=paulmith&pageNum_Images=1&totalRows_rsArmyImages=35&search=paul+smith&btn=Search+Army+Images&range=all. Zscout370 (talk) 21:24, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This article is great and well merited. Why does it's formatting differ? There seems to be a lot of HTML code which changes the appearance, and it looks awful on my browser.Manning 04:58, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Quote Source
I added a quote from Smith, and other material, based on "this source", which I also added to the external links. - Bert 171.159.64.10 00:47, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Question
What is meant by allegiance? The oath is to the uS Constitution not the Army. Maybe, instead of allegiance, it should be "Military Branch." Use Country to identify, well, the uS.

Not most recent?
The medal of honor page indicates that there has been a more recent awarding of the medal..
 * You're right, a Korean War veteran (Tibor Rubin) belatedly received the Medal in 2005. Smith's is still the most recent Medal of Honor action, though. I have updated the article to reflect that. Jwillbur 17:55, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Bronze or Silver Star?
The link about the simulation centre named in his honour mentions that he was awarded the Silver Star posthumously and was nominated for the Medal of Honor. Can someone check if the Bronze Star mentioned in this article is actually Silver? I'm not an expert, it just seems like as a direct combat award it would be the one he would have gotten prior to the Medal of Honor. 142.177.126.249 17:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

It ain't necessary to discuss how many times he got shot, all you need to say is he was fatally wounded

-above is an unsigned comment-

It's possible that the posthumous Silver Star was for the same action. The MOH approval process took nearly 2 years, so the Silver Star was the highest award that could be approved while the MOH nomination was still pending. The award paperwork would show this. A Silver Star is only awarded for valor in combat- unlike the Bronze Star and some other awards, which can be for merit or service/achievement... it's not awarded too often, and even less so before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So it's possible he recieved it for some other action en route to Baghdad, but not likely he recieved it for anything earlier in his career. Unfortunately, while his personal and unit military records would probably clear this up, I can't find an online source.

98.237.171.237 (talk) 05:18, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Also- a Bronze Star Medal for service/achievement (ie: without "V" device) is awarded posthumously to most servicemembers killed in action, in recognition of their service and ultimate sacrifice. So assuming the reporting cited is accurate... he *probably* has a Bronze Star (posthumous), as well as a Medal of Honor (posthumous)- which was initially a Silver Star before it was upgraded.

98.237.171.237 (talk) 05:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of Medals
In 2006 this brave soldier was posthumously awarded the gold version of the De Fleury Medal, an award specific to the US Army Corps of Engineers, to whom he belonged (NOTE: According to the Army Engineer Association "The award supplements the U.S. Army awards system, but is not an official part of that system. The medal may, however, be worn at official Regimental functions." Somewhat confusingly, the Wikipedia article about this medal states "It is understood that the de Fleury Medal was the first Congressional Medal struck, if not the first medal authorized." This seems to suggest its origins go back quite a long way.) Regardless and nevertheless, it seems worth mentioning, as I believe Smith to be the youngest ever recipient of the gold version of this medal, and the gold version itself is exceedingly rare. Not being an editor, all I can do is mention it and see if anyone would like to address this unusual and interesting fact about Smith. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.62.254.2 (talk) 10:29, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

How he died
When the event first occured, I read in numerous places he was shot in the abdomen and died half an hour later from abdominal bullet wounds. Two years later this was changed to a instantly fatal shot to the head. Did anyone else realise this? --Staples11 05:30, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008
Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 18:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

"Enemy"
It seems a bit biased to the United States viewpoint to use the term "enemy" in the narrative instead of "Iraqi soldiers" or some such term. My only problem is I'm not sure if they were Iraqi soldiers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.175.69.98 (talk) 01:48, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Enemy is fine in this context - it is a simple descriptive word. Whoever he was fighting against were his enemies regardless of their race, alliegence or creed: it is a factual statement, not an ideaogical one.--Jackyd101 (talk) 01:42, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It may be factual, but it's also biased, absolutely breaks NPOV. Were his enemies a bunch of girl scouts or Iraqi army regulars or Saddam Hussein's sons or Shia militia or Darth Vader's personal guard? It makes a huge difference. Painting them as anonymous cardboard cutouts, without even giving an approximate number as to how many people were involved (did this man die confronting two people or two hundred?) is to create a recruiting poster picture, not tell us exactly what happened, why, and involving whom. --talk 14 May 2010  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.174.35.75 (talk) 19:51, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

whatever this is a good article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.146.140.78 (talk) 06:38, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Combat Action Badge
Why does Sergeant First Class Smith's page not show a Combat Action Badge? Certainly he met the criteria. Does anyone see any good reason for it not to be added?Uniformcharlie886 (talk) 23:41, 9 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Oldie but a goldie. The CAB didn't get authorized until '05. It's also not a retroactive award. SpencerZC (talk) 03:44, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Paul Ray Smith. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090312085406/http://www.benningmwr.com:80/fitnesscenters-main.php to http://www.benningmwr.com/fitnesscenters-main.php

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 19:04, 11 February 2016 (UTC)