Memorial Day — An Orphan’s Medal of Honor

FPrice

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It is difficult to image this man's journey from orphan to hero.

Regarding the three men aforementioned, I noted that the word “hero” is grossly overused today, but as it relates to Medal of Honor recipients, it is invariably understated.

And so it is with S/Sgt. Clifford Chester Sims, who was killed in action defending his fellow soldiers in Vietnam.

Sims began life as Clifford Pittman, according to a 2015 profile. He was orphaned at a young age. Though his stepfather’s family took him in, they couldn’t care for him. So he left their house and lived in an abandoned bus near Panama City, Florida, where he attended a nearby school. Clifford survived on the kindness of strangers.

According to his widow, Mary Sims-Parker, “We didn’t call it 'homeless’ then, but he was homeless before they came up with the term. He has a long story.”

At age 13, Clifford was adopted by James and Irene Sims, who provided him his first stable home. He and Mary, his high school sweetheart, were married in December of 1961, soon after he enlisted in the Army. He trained at Fort Jackson, SC, and the Airborne School at Fort Benning, GA, and then the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC, before going to Ft. Campbell, TN, where he would ship out to Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division’s Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 501st Infantry “Raiders” — the “bastard company.”

It was a long road from tragedy to triumph, that ended in Hue, Vietnam, on 21 February, 1968. As his citation notes:

 
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