A remarkable hero: Trump to award WWII Kentucky soldier Medal of Honor

President Donald Trump will posthumously honor a Kentucky soldier with the Medal of Honor on Tuesday for his actions in World War II.

First Lt. Garlin M. Conner, a native of Albany, Kentucky, and a longtime farmer of the commonwealth soil, has been celebrated as one of the most decorated in soldiers in U.S. history. His honors include the Distinguished Service Cross, four Silver Star medals, a bronze star and three Purple Hearts for injuries suffered in combat.

But to his widow, Pauline Lyda Wells Conner, the only thing missing was the nation's highest military award for valor.

"He was my hero," Pauline Conner said at a Department of Defense roundtable Monday. "And he still is since he has been gone for the last 20 years ... I didn't think this would happen, I never thought it would happen."

Tuesday marks the end of more than a two-decade campaign to award him the Medal of Honor since Galin Conner's death in November 1998.

Armed with nothing but a telephone

It was a snowy and frigid day in Houston, France, on Jan. 24, 1945. Temperatures had dipped to 10 below zero at night, according to an Army account of Conner’s actions.

Conner was serving as an intelligence officer with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3d Infantry Division. Department of Defense historians said he was in the hospital but snuck back to his unit to assist them.

Not long after rejoining his unit, the American troops found themselves under attack by a wave of nearly 600 German soldiers.

Conner, previously wounded from the other theaters of war he had fought in, volunteered to direct artillery fire against the incoming tanks and troops.

He willingly ran out of the forest, out into the open, armed only with a telephone to call in artillery strikes within 15 feet of his boots to fight off the waves.

"Think about that," Erik Villard, a digital military historian, said at the Pentagon on Monday. "Running forward with nothing more than a telephone in your hand and facing that wave of Germans and calling in that artillery, the heroism is remarkable."

'Reliving his memories'

He went home, back to Kentucky, shortly after the battle. He was given the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest military honor, for his actions.

The Army account of Conner’s heroism was quoted a letter written by Lt. Col. Lloyd Ramsey less than a month after the battle, USA TODAY reported.

“He has the Distinguished Service Cross which could have been, I believe, a Congressional Medal of Honor, but he was heading home and we wanted to get him what he deserved before he left,” Ramsey wrote.

Conner, a native of Kentucky, was discharged from the Army on June 22, 1945, shortly after Victory in Europe Day on May 8, according to an Army press release.

While Pauline Conner told reporters at the Pentagon on Monday that her husband kept many of the horrors of war to himself, she recognized that he carried the weight of that snowy day in France for the rest of his life.

"He'd wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares, he'd go outside on the porch and smoke cigarettes," Pauline Conner remembered. "He was reliving his memories of what had passed."

Conner died in Albany, Kentucky on Nov. 5, 1998 at age 79, according to the Courier Journal archives.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took a moment on Monday afternoon to talk about Galin Conner's service and sacrifice.

"I'm proud to congratulate Pauline and her family today," McConnell said on the Senate floor. "And I want to thank her for giving our nation the opportunity to salute First Lieutenant Garlin Conner."

WPXI