Film on Medal of Honor winner Murl Conner to be shown July 3 and 4, followed by panel discussions about his and veterans’ lives, including state Treasurer Mark Metcalf

By Al Cross

More than 3,500 service members have won the Medal of Honor, but no one earned it and won it quite like Garlin Murl Conner, who was from Indian Creek in Clinton County.

The story of Conner’s World War II heroism, and the efforts of friends and admirers to get him the medal 20 years after he died, is told in an hour-long documentary, “From Honor to Medal: The Story of Garlin M. Conner,” which has aired many times on KET.

The documentary will be shown Friday and Saturday, July 3 and 4, at 3 p.m. both days, at the Mount Union Christian Church near 76 Falls. The showings will be followed by panel discussions about Conner’s life and veterans’ experiences. Panelists will include State Treasurer Mark Metcalf, a veterans’ advocate.

From The New Era, Albany, Nov. 11, 1944

One item up for discussion is whether Conner was the most decorated American soldier of World War II. That title is typically given to Audie Murphy, who was in the Third Infantry Division with Conner and earned his Medal of Honor two days later and a few miles away, in Alsace in eastern France in January 1945. Conner received four Silver Stars, two more than Murphy, and said he was wounded seven times, but the records of his Purple Hearts were destroyed in a fire at a federal records center.

Audie Murphy came home to fame and fortune as a Medal of Honor winner and movie star. Murl Conner earned the Distinguished Service Cross, which wasn’t upgraded to the Medal of Honor until 2018. He came home to a Kentucky farm with no electricity or running water. He had a family, gave them a good life, and was a leader of his fellow farmers and veterans. He suffered in body and mind from his Army service, but said very, very little about it.

He had offered the ultimate sacrifice, calling in artillery on his forward observer’s position, to stave off an attack by a German tank unit. He had volunteered for the task soon after being released for treatment of a leg wound. His valor earned him Medal of Honor, after a campaign he authorized shortly before his death in 1998.

His story was first told by a rank stranger who became his greatest advocate and inspired others to join his campaign to get Conner the Medal of Honor. Led by a neighbor who wouldn’t take no for an answer, they struggled for 20 years to break through the Army bureaucracy, losing at every turn – but remaining inspired by Murl Conner’s battlefield examples of determination and resolve.

In the end, in an amazing turn of events, they won. Their story is told in the documentary, produced by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky.

“He was a combination of Kit Carson and Davy Crockett,” said the late Walton Haddix of Albany, who took up the campaign begun by Richard Chilton, a Green Beret veteran from Genoa City, Wisconsin, who met Conner and learned his story while researching the service of his uncle, who died at Anzio under Conner’s command.

“He cared about his men more than anybody I ever knew,” Chilton says. “If you want to save your life, go out with Murl. Don’t go out with anybody else.”

The documentary was sponsored by private donors and the Veterans Trust Fund of the Kentucky Department for Veterans Affairs, which assisted the Conner team’s legal efforts at the direction of then-Commissioner Heather French Henry, whose cause was veterans when she was Miss America. She says in the documentary, “Just to know that you are part of this great mission that has lasted so long, and that you could at some point in your future, tell your kids, tell your grandkids, that once upon a time you were part of this fight . . . ”

President Trump embraces Pauline Conner at White House (EPA-EFE)

The fight ended June 26, 2019, when President Trump presented the Medal of Honor to Conner’s widow, Pauline Conner, in a ceremony at the White House. She said in a speech at the Pentagon the next day, “This is what Murl would want me to say: God bless these United States of America.”

The documentary was written and directed by Jeff Hoagland of Lexington. The associate producer was Janet Whitaker, formerly of KET and the Institute for Rural Journalism. The writer of this article, who was director of the Institute at the time, was executive producer.

The panel discussion about Murl Conner’s life and the effort to get him the Medal of Honor will be led by his cousin, Luther C. “Hoppy” Conner Jr., a lawyer who was part of the effort. Metcalf, the state treasurer, has made veterans and military personnel one of seven communities in his Financial Empowerment Coalition and Database.