Superman’s Medal

“Come in, come in, buddy,” said the broad-shouldered, barrel-chested man with thinning white hair and a big happy-to-see-me smile, as I stepped inside his room at the Mills House Hotel in Charleston, S.C., last week. “You’re getting ready to play the part of the president of the United States.” The man – a retired U.S. Army sergeant major (whose name I won’t mention for obvious reasons) was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for combat valor – had asked that I come to his room an hour before the national Medal of Honor convention’s Patriot’s Dinner, and tie his bowtie and fasten his Medal of Honor around his neck.