Project aims to posthumously award Medals of Honor to Jewish and non-white servicemembers

ARLINGTON, Va. (7News) — A group of researchers at Park University’s George S. Robb Centre in Missouri is combing through thousands of records, journals, books, documentation to find Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native, and Jewish Americans who met all the criteria for the Medal of Honor, but never received it.

The goal: To leave no man behind, no matter how long it takes or how much time has passed.

"We left no servicemember on the battlefield," says Dr. Timothy Westcott, director of the George S. Robb Centre. "In some sense, I feel what we are doing is the same vein of that."

Dr. Westcott is both a veteran and historian, leading the research project to bring justice of sorts to 205 World War I veterans who met the criteria for the Medal of Honor for their service in the great war but were denied or received a downgraded honor.

"It has become a timely study and I think that’s what drives us a little more to see how we can tell those stories, particularly related to race and religious discrimination," he says.

Stories of First lieutenant Dr. Thomas Edward Jones and Jewish American First lieutenant Joseph Aaron Mendelson, both from Washington, D.C., who served as medics and received the Distinguished Service Cross.

And the story of Sgt. William A. Butler from Salisbury, Maryland whose Medal of Honor recommendation was downgraded to a Distinguished Service Cross, despite a glowing review from George S. Robb, a white servicemember who was awarded the Medal of Honor.

The team says they all qualified for the Medal of Honor

"There is DOD reports and communications leading up through 1924 that basically: pretty racist," Dr. Westcott says. "Lays the case to the probability of why certain races did not receive Medals of Honor."

These researchers are using three criteria Congress established in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019. They’re reviewing servicemembers who received the Distinguished Service Cross, or the Croix de Guerre (the French equivalent of the Medal of Honor), or received an actual Medal of Honor nomination from 1919 to 1923, but the nomination was downgraded to the Distinguished Service Cross.

So far they’ve determined one Asian, 100 Jewish, 73 black, 21 Native and 10 Hispanic servicemembers meet one or more of those criteria.

"These men were absolutely incredible," says Ashlyn Weber, who is also working on the project at the George S. Robb Centre.

While many considered the military to be the great equalizer, unified by the same mission regardless of race or creed, when they returned home from war, that did not apply.

"They could never catch a break, they went overseas and came back and nothing changed," Weber says.

"What I want the remembrance to be is, these are human beings," Dr. Westcott says.

Eleven of those 205 servicemembers the project says are entitled to the Medal of Honor, are from the D.C. area.

There is a statute of limitations on this award, but this team was a driving force in two bills passed by Congress that waive the limitation for World War I and require the Department of Defense to review servicemembers who were unfairly denied the Medal of Honor.