Robert Maxwell for the American Battlefield TrustMedal of Honor recipient Britt Slabinski on the Trust’s Slaughter Pen Farm property at Fredericksburg
For national medal of Honor Day this year, the American Battlefield Trust and the Congressional Medal of Honor Society announced an initiative to tell the tales of the recipients of the nation’s highest military honor.
The Medal of Honor Valor Trail™ will weave the stories of the decoration with the places most connected with its recipients: battlefields and historic sites, hometowns and burial places, namesake sites, monuments and museums. The trail so envisioned will span centuries—the 19th to the 21st—and continents, showcasing the diversity of those honored.
“There is no higher honor that our country can bestow than the Medal of Honor,” said David Duncan, president of the American Battlefield Trust. “It is synonymous with the best of who we are as Americans and the ideals of valor, patriotism, and self-sacrifice. But the dramatic stories behind the awarding of many of these medals are rarely told at the places where they unfolded.”
Leroy Petry, president of the Medal of Honor Society and himself a recipient, agreed: “The society’s mission is to promote the legacy of the Medal of Honor, which we do by telling the stories of the medal through a variety of education and outreach programs. The Valor Trail will make our efforts more tangible by combining Medal of Honor stories with places in our own communities and places we can visit.”
The Trust believes foundationally in the power of place, in the unique ability of landscapes and other spots to embody meaningful lessons for those who follow history’s footsteps.
Similarly, the society believes promoting the medal’s legacy—honoring the sacrifice and inspiring the future—ensures that we not lose sight of the values associated with both the medal and the nation.
The initiative grew from the partnership between the Trust and the society. We first sought to identify parallels in the stories of living medal recipients and Civil War recipients, when the award was introduced, and then to bring those similarities to the 19th-century sites where battles were fought. Both organizations recognized inherent connections between story and place. The Trust worked with the society in 2019 to create an interactive map on the American Battlefield Trust’s website that identifies all 1,500-plus Civil War citations, tying in biographical information (which sometimes can be scant) about those recipients.
The Medal of Honor Valor Trail™ will go even further, including recipients of all eras, as well as a wider variety of relevant sites, some far from battlefields, to encourage visits and add to points of community pride. Few Americans have the opportunity to visit the Pacific isle of Iwo Jima or the Hindu Kush range in Afghanistan, but those who sacrificed for their nation in even these remotest places are there in visitors’ thoughts and sights on the Valor Trail.
See how valor can be “mapped” and made inviting to Americans following the footsteps of heroes at ValorTrail.org
David Duncan is president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan American Battlefield Trust, which is dedicated to preserving America’s hallowed battlegrounds—Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Civil War—and educating the public about their significance.
