The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States.

This medal is for the men who went down that day.

It's for the families of those who didn't make it.

Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves.

On Medal of Honor, stories of courage, you'll hear about

these heroes and what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery. Listen to Medal of Honor

wherever you get your podcast. This presentation of In Their Own Words is dedicated to the brave

men and women of the United States Armed Forces. Toward the end of 1944, it was clear to everyone in Europe that Germany was losing the Second World War.

Low on fuel, munitions, and morale, the ability of the rogue nation was slipping by the hour.

Still, with six million men under arms, Hitler burned with a passion for one more mad drive

into the Allied lines.

And so it was that in December of 1944, with the Russians closing in from the East and the

Allies chipping away at the Western Front, the Nazis made their move. 600,000 Germans in 29 divisions, with 11 armored panzer divisions,

surged into the Allied Front.

It was the setting for total Allied defeat, but Hitler had failed to calculate the most

important element of all. He could count the thousands of guns, the tons of munitions, and the hundreds of tanks,

but he could never grasp the unfailing courage and valor of the American fighting man.

Douglas Dillard was a paratrooper in the 551st Airborne Division in December of 1944.

He and 500,000 other Americans could scarcely have foreseen the numbing hammer blow that was about to fall upon them.

For the paratroopers, just staying alive in the brutal winter cold was battle enough.

We had arrived in Leon France, trains that brought us up from southern France, and we were there for about two weeks, maybe 10 days.

And I was prepared to get suited up and go to Paris the next day for a 24-hour pass.

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