As Ford and Staff Sgt. John Wayne Walding returned fire, Walding was hit below his right knee. Ford turned and saw that the bullet “basically amputated his right leg right there on the battlefield.”
Walding, of Groesbeck, Tex., recalled: “I literally grabbed my boot and put it in my crotch, then got the boot laces and tied it to my thigh, so it would not flop around. There was about two inches of meat holding my leg on.” He put on a tourniquet, watching the blood flow out the stump to see when it was tight enough.
Then Walding tried to inject himself with morphine but accidentally used the wrong tip of the syringe and put the needle in this thumb, he later recalled. “My thumb felt great,” he said wryly, noting that throughout the incident he never lost consciousness. “My name is John Wayne,” he said.
9 men received the silver star as a result of their actions during that battle. That is the most given to single unit for one battle since the Vietnam War.