By Chris Colvin, News Writer, Nightly News

Hi. Starting out with the economy and the stock market today with a focus on the folks who are making the case that the credit squeeze is nowhere near abating. Also, some musings on a high-profile Iraq op-ed, some back and forth over AG Gonzales and perjury, a "culture of corruption" update, and a musical tribute to a guy who loved music.. and was loved much more than he knew.

Lots of soothing talk today about how the credit problems have roiled the stock market are "contained" and "easing." Uhhh. Calculated Risk posts a statement from huge Real Estate Investment Trust American Home Mortgage (some estimates say AHM underwrote 1 in every 20 mortgages in this country last year.) They are having some rather extreme financial difficulties at the moment, and it's important to note they have NO subprime exposure in their portfolio. All their lending is to Alt-A and prime borrowers. Trader/blogger Genesis finds this quite alarming. And the big investment banks are feeling the pain as well. The Boston Globe's Robert kuttner looks at some historical analogies.  And good Lord, check out CNBC's king of the booya Jim Cramer advising people to walk away from their overpriced, over-mortgaged homes!  The WSJ's Mullins and Lueck report Democrats on Capitol Hill are losing their appetite for raising taxes on hedge fund and private equity managers who pay a 15% rate on much of their income.  Michael Barone thinks Americans are stupid for feeling that  the country is off on the wrong track.

On the Iraq front: David Kamiya writing in Salon connects President Bush's religious convictions to the neocon war fantasies that didn't pan out and traces responsibility for Iraq to the sin of pride.  Willisms thinks yesterday's the O'Hanlon/Pollack op-ed will tar the Democrats as the party of failure.  But Glenn Greenwald reminds us of other stuff O'Hanlon and Pollack have said along the way. (Hint.. they've been wrong. A lot.) And more Greenwald on the media fallout from the op-ed.   Juan Cole picks up on Lisa Myers' investigative report on Nightly last night, exposing corruption at the highest level of Iraq's government. 

David Ignatius of the Washington Post argues that the U.S. shouldn't wait until al Qaida attacks here again to strike at the camps in Waziristan.

The Carpetbagger Report notes that Vice President Cheney told CBS News yesterday that he really does think he is a sort of government chimera: not executive and not legislative.

The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus sticks up for embattled AG Alberto Gonzales, saying it may have been dissembling but it wasn't perjury.  The Anonymous Liberal begs to differ.  And Powerline feels compelled to talk about why they bother to defend Gonzales from Democratic "bullies."

The Anchorage Daily News wraps up the FBI/IRS raid on Senator Ted Stevens' home yesterday.  And the New York Times put out a handy chart this weekend that shows the balance of the "bi-partisan culture of corruption" tilts pretty heavily to the GOP side. (click on the picture for chart.)

John Harwood of the WSJ and CNBC wraps up Giuliani's health care reform pitch, which centers on large tax breaks for families so they can buy private insurance.  If Judith (not Judi dammit!) Giuliani really is a hyper-driven striver and social climber, this Vanity Fair profile is not the kind of publicity she had in mind.

Slate's John Dickerson writes about what he perceives as Barack Obama's biggest liability: lack of experience. Here's a possible two word response: Dick Cheney.

And ending on a personal note today.. a little music in memory of one of the funniest, most lovable colleagues and friends I've ever had. Eric, you're missed. 

 

Photo by M.L. Flynn

Brian Williams with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. They sat down today for his first US television interview.

Brian sat down with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown early this morning here in New York. This is the second time he's had the opportunity to hear from the new PM. Last year, when Brown was still Chancellor, they met in Nigeria to talk about economic and education initiatives in Africa. Here, Brian talks about the interview, which will air tonight on "Nightly News." A transcript of the interview will be available on our Web site after the broadcast.
Click here to watch.

Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the

Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.

ARTHUR J. JACKSON
Private First Class, U.S. Marine Corps 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division

Arthur Jackson graduated from high school in 1942, then got a job as a laborer at the Naval Air Station in Sitka, Alaska. That December, he traveled down to Portland, Oregon, to enroll in the Navy's flight training program, but was turned down because of poor vision in one eye. The Navy recruiter suggested that he consider the Marine Corps. He signed up in January 1943.
 He eventually joined the 17th Replacement Battalion and was sent to Australia. In Melbourne he was assigned to the Seventh Marines and served in the machine-gun section of a weapons platoon, which took part in the invasion of New Britain in December. The Seventh Marines then went on to the Russell Islands to prepare for the landing on Peleliu. At his request, Jackson was moved into a rifle platoon, where he became an automatic rifleman.
 Jackson's unit landed on Peleliu on September 15, 1944, in temperatures topping 110 degrees. For three days, the Seventh Marines moved across the island.
On the fourth day, Jackson's company was held up by sniper and machine-gun fire. His commander asked him if he thought he could make it to a shallow trench system that connected the enemy bunkers. Jackson's answer was yes. He lightened his load by removing his helmet, pack, and leggings; then, carrying a twenty-pound Browning automatic rifle and several magazines weighing one pound each, he headed directly toward the Japanese as his platoon laid down covering fire.
Each time he got to an enemy position, he unloaded a full twenty-round magazine at it. By the time he finally reached the largest bunker, which held approximately thirty-five Japanese soldiers, his squad leader had brought up more ammunition and grenades, as well as a combat pack containing about forty pounds of explosives. Together he and Jackson prepared the charge. With his rifle, Jackson killed the two enemy soldiers guarding the bunker, then carried the charge of explosives to the aperture of the bunker and shoved it in, running for cover to a bomb crater about fifty yards away.
 When all the debris from the explosion, including the huge coconut logs framing the bunker, had fallen to the ground around him, Jackson got up and took out the remaining enemy positions. In all, he accounted for the destruction of twelve pillboxes and fifty soldiers.
 Four nights after this one-man assault, Jackson and his assistant automatic rifleman were in a defensive position when an enemy soldier lobbed a grenade into their foxhole. Jackson reached down and felt for it in the dark. When he stood up and tossed it back, killing two Japanese, he was hit in the neck by a stray .45-caliber bullet from a GI on the line. The slug came within a hair of his jugular vein. He was evacuated to a hospital ship bound for New Caledonia. After recuperting, he returned to his unit, eventually taking part in the invasion of Okinawa. A platoon sergeant by then, he was again wounded in action.
 On October 5, 1945, Jackson received the Medal of Honor from President Harry Truman along with thirteen other men, including fighter ace Gregory "Pappy" Boyington of the Black Sheep Squadron and future Marine Corps Commandant Louis Wilson. The next day the group went to New York City for a ticker-tape parade in honor of Admiral Chester Nimitz.

By Albert Oetgen, Senior Producer, NBC News Washington

It seems appropriate that a great filmmaker, a great broadcaster and a great sportsman died today. Because Eric Wishnie loved film, television and sports... and he loved the mystery and mysticism of coincidence. He also was a first-rate practitioner of the jagged and self-protective humor that journalists engage in when our front-row seats to life's harrowing events become too close and overwhelming.

You can read Eric's words and you can watch the pieces he produced, but they don't really capture him. There was a remoteness to Eric, for all of the love and affection he showered on his friends here at NBC. And it was that remoteness, that vulnerability, that endeared him to us. He was a perfectionist, and when he wasn't perfect he was embarrassed. He stayed embarrassed most of the time, but he disguised those feelings with a personality that was disporportionately large for his small and delicate frame. (He could eat a big steak at the drop of a hat. Often, he did. If you slapped him on the back, however, he winced in pain.)

Eric was an artist, with the tortured sensibilities of an artist. We all wanted to be as good as he was. None of us succeeded.

The deaths of Ingmar Bergman, Tom Snyder and Bill Walsh will generate thousands and thousands of inches of copy in newspapers here and abroad. Eric's death deserves that treatment. He won't get it. But we have a broadcast network at our disposal, and did our best to memorialize him tonight, to make sure that people who didn't know about him -- as they knew about Bergman and Snyder and Walsh -- know his great accomplishments and his profound influence on our lives and the broadcast he helped produce. He taught a little something to all of us, and our work reflects that every day.

He also left a slew of stories. Like this one: Eric and I shared a birthday, and a great love for the New York Yankees. Several years ago, we went to Mickey Mantle's Restaurant for lunch to celebrate. There were no tables when we got there, so we sat at the bar. The bartender handed us menus, the only two menus at the bar. When we opened them, we found loose pieces of paper with the day's specials. Printed on fine stock, the specials menu featured the Mickey Mantle logo, a cool graphic of the Yankee Stadium facade, and, in bold face lettering, our shared birthday: June 1.

Eric's interest in mystery, mysticism and coincidence was most evident in his robust hobby: He collected symbols and icons and talismen. Bobble-head dolls, for instance. He had what seemed like dozens. His office was a museum of pop culture. One executive producer called it the most annoying office at NBC. Eric was at his best reacting to that sort of disapproval. "No fun," he said. "No imagination. They'll never make him into a bobble-head doll." Eric pilfered about 40 percent of the stuff he had in his office. He once brought a chunk of the Coliseum back from a visit to Rome, a violation of Italy's antiquities laws punishable by God-knows-what.

So after he ordered the special, it was no surprise to me that he slipped the birthday menu into his coat pocket. I followed suit. (He was a leader.) Several minutes later, after we had been served, a couple of other guys sat down at the bar. The bartender handed them the menus we had used. Eric, who was capable of a vaguely menacing maliciousness that was so inappropriate you could do nothing but laugh when he displayed it, leaned into me, and whispered, roughly: "Those guys are mooks. Morons. They don't even know there's a special today. They should really wait for a table. What do they think this is, their birthday?"

That menu, framed, hangs in my office today. It always makes me think of Eric Wishnie.

Wishnie, as I called him, used to say to me: "I love you, man." I always answered, "I can't say the words. But you know."

I still can't. But I know he knew.

Brian anchors the broadcast tonight, but correspondent Don Teague previews some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast. Click here to watch.

Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the

Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.

DANIEL K. INOUYE
Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Company E, 442nd Regimental Combat Team

Daniel K. Inouye was a senior in high school in Honolulu when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He remembered standing outside his house with his father as Japanese planes swooped down on the U.S. fleet, both of them, as Japanese Americans, sharing a special sense of horror at this event. Inouye, who had been teaching first aid to local community groups, spent the first day of the war working at a Red Cross station.

The next September, he enrolled in the University of Hawaii, with plans to become a doctor. Then the War Department, which had refused to accept Japanese-American volunteers after Pearl Harbor, reversed itself, so Inouye quit school and enlisted. He was assigned to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team; during training in Mississippi, the unit found its motto: "Go for Broke!"

When the 442nd shipped out for Naples in May 1944, Inouye was a sergeant and squad leader. Its casualty rate was so high that it eventually took 12,000 men to fill the original 4,500 places in the regiment. The unit began fighting in June 1944 north of Rome, pushing the Germans back along the Arno River. Later in the summer, it spent several months fighting in France's Rhone valley, where Inouye was given a battlefield commission as a second lieutenant. The 442nd then returned to Italy.

On April 21, 1945, with the European war nearing its end, Inouye's company was ordered to attack a heavily defended ridge guarding an important road in the vicinity of San Terenzo. His platoon wiped out an enemy patrol and mortar observation post and reached the main line of resistance before the rest of the American force. As the troops continued up the hill, three German machine guns focused their fire on them, pinning them down. Inouye worked his way toward the first bunker. Pulling out a grenade, he felt something hit him in his side but paid no attention and threw the grenade into the machine-gun nest. After it exploded, he advanced and killed the crew. He didn't realize he'd been shot until one of his men told him he was bleeding.

Although he felt weak, Inouye continued up the hill, throwing two more grenades into the second gun emplacement and destroying it before he fell. His men, trying to take the third bunker, were forced back. He dragged himself toward it, then stood up and was about to pull the pin on his last grenade when a German appeared in the bunker and fired a rifle grenade. It hit Inouye in the right elbow and virtually tore off his arm. He pried the grenade out of his dead right fist with his other hand and threw it at the third bunker, then lurched toward it, firing his tommy gun left-handed. A German bullet hit him in the leg. A medic reached him and gave him a shot of morphine, but Inouye didn't allow himself to be evacuated until the position was secured. In the hospital, the remnants of his right arm were amputated.

After leaving the Army and going through a long period of recuperation, Inouye finished college. Forced to give up his dream of practicing medicine, he decided to study law. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Hawaii in 1954—Congress's first Japanese American—and to the Senate in 1962.

On June 21, 2000, as part of a reevaluation of the military accomplishments of Asian Americans in World War II, Senator Inouye was presented with the Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton for his heroism in Italy more than half a century earlier.

by Lester Holt

Hello from New York, where it has turned into a dark and stormy afternoon. In fact it's so dark outside I keep checking my watch thinking we're about to go on the air.

by Lester Holt

By John Rutherford, NBC News Washington

VIDEO: In this raw video shot by NBC News at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Spc. Jason Pinney, 24, of Decatur, Ind., receives a Purple Heart for a wound he suffered in Afghanistan.

Do Americans appreciate the sacrifices being made by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? I suspect most people would say, "Yes, of course I do," but some soldiers disagree.

"I think some of you would probably agree that there's some people out in our country that may not realize that we are at war, and you see it sometimes every day," Brig. Gen. Michael Tucker said at a ceremony today for 14 soldiers receiving Purple Hearts at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

"The military is at war, but the country is not," University of Maryland sociologist David Segal told the Washington Post Magazine. "And the military resents that."

Does it? Not according to the soldiers receiving Purple Hearts today.

"This is our job," said Spc. Joshua Lutz, 24, of Palm Harbor, Fla., who was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq. "It's like people who go to work every day in office buildings. That's their job. This is what we do."

Sgt. Luis Rivera-Valentin, 30, of Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, wounded in a Baghdad bomb explosion, agreed.

"Our job is to do whatever we have to do," Rivera-Valentin said. "That's what we're here for."

The soldiers were more ambivalent about whether they're appreciated by the American people.

"Americans, a good portion of them, they care more that Paris Hilton got out of jail, they care more that something's on sale than their own out there fighting for them," said SSgt. Scott Gentry, 31, of Spokane, Wash., wounded in the face by a roadside bomb.

Sgt. Luis Martinez-Ramirez, 38, of Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, injured in the same blast as Sgt. Rivera-Valentin, believes the public owes the troops a debt of gratitude.

"They should appreciate the sacrifice we are doing every single day," he said, "because we are trying to keep terrorism away from home."

Pfc. Ian Gillis, 20, of Santa Rosa, Calif., believes their sacrifices are appreciated.

"For the most part, I think America's behind the common soldier, whether they believe in the politics of it or not," he said.

What do you think? We'd like to hear from you. Please "Discuss" below to share your opinion.

Washington Producer John Rutherford is a decorated Vietnam veteran. He posts a weekly blog on burials of service members at Arlington National Cemetery.

by NBC Correspondent Mark Potter
In reporting for Nightly News recently on bank robberies in America, we found the separation of myth and reality. We've all heard of the famous bank robbers who were celebrated in movies, song and print -- John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Willie Sutton, Alvin Karpis, Frank and Jesse James, Butch Cassidy and "Pretty Boy" Floyd.

And surely we've all laughed, or least shaken our heads, at some of the nicknames given by police and the media to current robbers -- Mad Hatter, Ponytail Bandit, Barbie Bandits, Leprechaun Bandit, Bossy Bandit, Cell Phone Bandit, and Band-Aid Bandit, just to name a few.

While bank robbery has always enjoyed an odd bit of folk appreciation -- think Robin Hood -- the truth is that it's usually a dangerous crime committed by desperate people. Many are strung out on drugs or alcohol, or are at their wit's end in terms of economic survival.

Police say one of the most frightening scenarios they face involves an armed bank robber -- twitchy and perhaps high to begin with -- who is spooked by a security guard, a reluctant teller or a customer trying to be a hero. That's when panicked shots are fired, and innocent people get hurt or killed. Sometimes it happens with no apparent reason. The threat is always there.

In May alone, two tellers in Bessemer, Ala., and another in Chicago were murdered in bank robberies, while two other tellers, a customer and a guard were injured. In Tampa, Fla., recently, victims of the prolific Band-Aid bandit, who allegedly robbed 39 banks before he was caught, testified about the terror they felt when he pointed a gun at their heads, forcing some to the floor. 

After a drop in bank robberies a few years ago, they're back on the rise again, according to the FBI. And certain parts of the country are getting hit particularly hard. With branch banks on virtually every corner now, the threat is rising.

The Hollywood and tabloid myths can be fun, and have entertained us for years. But they are far from the realities of this frightening crime. 

I'll have more about this tonight on the broadcast.

Brian anchors the broadcast tonight, but correspondent Mike Taibbi delivers the vlog. Click here to watch.

Editor's note: Washington producer John Rutherford writes a weekly post on the funerals of soldiers and Marines at Arlington National Cemetery. There were no public funerals this week, so he's written a tribute to four soldiers who died in an ambush last week in Iraq.

by John Rutherford, NBC News Washington

The Pentagon issued a short news release on July 21 announcing the deaths of four soldiers in Iraq. The men and their Iraqi interpreter were killed July 18 in Adhamiyah when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb and small arms fire. The soldiers were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Infantry Division based in Schweinfurt, Germany. What follows is a brief tribute to each of the men, four of at least 3,639 Americans to die so far in Iraq.

Sgt. 1st Class Luis E. Gutierrez-Rosales, 38, of Bakersfield, Calif, was born in Mexico and loved motorcycles, sipping tequila, and the movie "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective." He also loved his mother, sisters, fiancé, and 8-year-old daughter, Amber. He was the man in a house of seven women. "Bendito tu eres entre las mujeres," his sisters would quote from the Hail Mary to him. "You're blessed among all the women." He'd tell them, in turn, not to worry about him. "God doesn't want the good-looking guys in heaven," he'd say, according to the Bakersfield Californian. But when his mother got home from work on July 18, she heard a knock on the door. "I just opened the door and the two men were there, and I knew," she told the newspaper. "But I will try to be strong, because that's what he always wanted."

Spc. Zachary R. Clouser, 19, of Dover, Pa., had five brothers and sisters and loved to hunt, fish and drive fast. "If you see me going slow, take another look. It's not me," he wrote on his MySpace page. He left for Iraq on Aug. 6, 2006, his 19th birthday. In a February article in the McClatchy Newspapers, he said, "This isn't our war. We're just in the middle." He was due home next month. "A week or so before all this happened, I had a dream, sat straight up in bed," his mother, Deb Ethridge, told WPMT-TV in Harrisburg, Pa. "I never told anybody, and a week later, that dream came true." His mother plans to cremate her son's remains and keep his ashes at home with her.

 

Spc. Richard Gilmore III, 22, of Jasper, Ala., is survived by his widow, Jimmie Sue, a 3-year-old daughter, Alexis, and a 2-year-old son, Malakiah. When two soldiers appeared at his father's door at 12:30 in the morning, Richard Gilmore Jr. told the Jasper Daily Mountain Eagle he feared the worst. "The minute I opened the door and saw those two soldiers, I knew," he said. "I was just crushed. He was my best friend. We were very close. I'm going to cry many nights over this. I know when I see his coffin, it's going to floor me. There's no use denying it. It's going to be really bad. This is a sad situation, especially for my grandchildren. I've faced a lot of things in my life, but I don't think it can get any harder or worse than this."

 

Spc. Daniel E. Gomez, 21, of Warner Robins, Ga., played football at Warner Robins High School and was the top cadet and corps commander in his Junior Air Force ROTC. A combat medic, he was quoted in a Feb. 5 article in the Washington Post as saying of the insurgents in Iraq, "They're like the Viet Cong. They can wait it out. We're not going to be here forever, and they know that. And then we're gone, and it's all theirs." His parents, Juan and Juanita Gomez, were devastated by his death. "We tried to talk to them, but every time we try to talk, they break down," his aunt, Refugia Leal, told the Brownsville Herald. His sister, Mari Anne, saw a lesson in her brother's death. "You're here one day, you're gone the next," she told the Macon Telegraph. "We hate to say it, but we're another statistic."

Photos courtesy of Department of Defense.

Washington Producer John Rutherford is a decorated Vietnam veteran. He posts a weekly blog on burials of service members at Arlington National Cemetery.

By Chris Colvin, News Writer, Nightly News

Hi. Some interesting back at forth on Iraq today, most of it based right here at home. Congressional Democrats raise the stakes big-time in their fight with the Bush Administration and the Attorney General in particular. Is the dreaded credit crunch here? And a little politics to round things out...  

Kicking off today's look at Iraq with Digby posting at Salon and linking to a piece by NBC's Richard Engel about the Iraqis' real issues and motives. Read it. Or at least read Engel's piece.

Armed Liberal at WindsofChange doesn't think much of the slew of "war (and after war) is hell" themed movies about to hit the multiplexes. Meanwhile on the ground.. writer Michael Yon is blogging on National Review Online from Baqubah.  And a big blowup that's been brewing over The New Republic's war blogger-- a soldier who's been writing under the pseudonym Scott Thomas has finally blown out into the open. TNR, no stranger to being caught making stuff up,  has revealed the soldiers' identity and blogs on the right have pounced. Powerline's Scott Johnson has a good representation of the critiques.  And Andrew Sullivan notes nothing the guy said has actually been disproved, and looks at the psychology behind the attacks from the right.

And a note on terrorism and journalism.. Talking Points Memo has been picking apart the "cheese bombers" story that this broadcast has been running with this week.

mcjoan at DailyKos wraps up the breaking news: Senate Democrats today formally called for a special counsel investigation into Alberto Gonzales' testimony, and threw in a subpoena for Karl Rove. Newsweek's Isikoff and Hosenball round up Gonzales' new problems after Tuesday's eyebrow-raising testimony.  And Gonzales is getting no love from some of the blogs on the right.  OK, John  Hinderaker at Powerline feels sympathy for him.  RedState's Pejman Yousefzadeh thinks the guy the President refers to as "Fredo" should indeed be taken out fishing. The Hill agrees, in less colorful language.  Glenn Greenwald drills down on Gonzales' curious "other intelligence activities" comment during Tuesday's testimony.  Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters has a different view. 

Booman Tribune reminds us of the last time contempt of Congress charges were brought and notes how things have changed since then.  And Robert Novak's column purports to unmask the political motivations behind Congressional investigations into the White House using government employees as political tools in election years, but it reads more like a bill of indictment if you asked me.

The economy: is the credit crunch no long a fear and now a reality?  Seeking Alpha talks today about the connection between mortgage and corporate debt.  And here's a term you might want to familiarize yourself with: "bridge loans." Or as calculated risk puts it "pier loans."  And a somewhat wacky and quite entertaining trader Genesis at Market Ticker set the tone for the day this morning.

Politics: Thomas Schaller writes in Salon about why none of the Republican candidates are catching on and finds -- to some extent at least -- it's due to the "failed Presidency of George W. Bush."

Obama really must be getting some traction because Haystack at RedState launched an attack that reads like a preview of what he'd face if he makes it to the general.  And Steven Stark of the Boston Phoenix writes about Obama's not-so-secret weapon: Oprah.

Greg Sargent at TPM reveals the letter SecDef Gates has written to Hillary Clinton more than walking-back the criticism she got from his deputy, former Cheney aide Eric Edelman. Reid Wilson writes in RealClearPolitics about the brilliant bit of netroots cultivation Clinton's campaign pulled off this week.

Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the

Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.

EINAR H. INGMAN
Corporal, U.S. Army Company E, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division

Growing up on a farm in Wisconsin, Einar Ingman was always fascinated with heavy machines. When a military recruiter told him he could learn a trade involving this equipment in the Army, Ingman signed up, but after the Korean War broke out, his unit, the 17th Infantry, was rushed into battle, and he found himself carrying a rifle instead of driving a truck.
On February 26, 1951, Corporal Ingman was in the assault platoon of his company, patrolling the mountainous terrain near the town of Malta-ri and clearing the way for the rest of the U.S. forces to advance. Suddenly, the patrol ran into a Chinese force dug in at the top of a ridge above them. When the squad leaders and several men were hit by enemy fire, Ingman assumed command. He first radioed for artillery and tank support, then raced up the hill, his men following.
Ingman charged an enemy machine-gun nest, threw a grenade into it, and shot the gunners. As he approached a second machine-gun emplacement, an enemy grenade exploded near his head, knocking him down and tearing off a piece of his left ear. As he struggled to his feet, a Chinese soldier jumped up from a trench and shot him in the face. The bullet hit next to his nose, tearing out his upper teeth and exiting behind his ear.
He immediately lost all memory—even of getting shot. Acting by reflex, he got up and moved forward toward the machine gun, emptying his clip and attacking the gunners with his bayonet. Then he passed out.
As a result of Ingman's action, the enemy defenses were broken, his unit secured its objective, and one hundred enemy soldiers abandoned their weapons and fled in disorganized retreat.
Seven days later, Ingman regained consciousness in a Tokyo hospital. He had lost the hearing in his left ear, was blind in his left eye, and had no recall, even of his own name. After he underwent emergency brain surgery, his memory slowly began coming back.
He was sent to a hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he underwent twenty-three more operations in the next two years. Although he recovered physically, his memory would come and go.
In the summer of 1951, he was flown from the hospital to Washington, where he was met by a stretcher and an ambulance, and where he got a renewed sense of how serious his injuries were when one of the waiting medics was surprised to see that he could actually walk. He was fitted for a new dress uniform, and President Harry Truman presented the Medal of Honor to him on July 5, 1951.
After the ceremony, Ingman flew back home to Tomahawk, Wisconsin, where the townspeople staged a party for him and gave him a new car, boat, and trailer to go along with it. In the boat was a huge northern muskie that had just been caught. They cooked the fish and everyone in the town joined Ingman in a grand feast.

Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the

Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.

THOMAS J. HUDNER, Jr.
Lieutenant junior grade, U.S. Navy  Fighter Squadron 32, USS Leyte

Thomas Hudner had no particular interest in airplanes when he graduated from the Naval Academy in 1946. He wanted only to serve aboard a ship. But in 1948, after he had been at sea for several months and had worked as a communications officer at Pearl Harbor for a year, he was ready for a new challenge and volunteered for flight training. He was briefly stationed in Lebanon before being assigned to the carrier USS Leyte as an F4U Corsair pilot.
 By the fall of 1950, Lieutenant Hudner was flying combat missions in Korea. On December 4, he was one of a flight of six fighters sent out on an armed reconnaissance mission over North Korea. Hudner was wingman for a Navy flier named Jesse Brown, the son
of a Mississippi sharecropper who had attracted a good deal of attention—and some discrimination—as the Navy's first black pilot.
 While strafing enemy positions at a low altitude, Brown's plane was hit by antiaircraft fire. Smoking badly and without power, the aircraft was too low for Brown to bail out or clear the snow-covered mountains. Hudner followed Brown down, calling off a checklist to help prepare him for the crash landing.
 Brown put his plane down in a wheels-up landing in a clearing below. The impact buckled the fuselage at the cockpit, and Hudner was certain that Brown was dead. To his amazement, Brown opened the canopy and waved weakly, but he appeared to be unable to free himself. Knowing that rescue helicopters had a long distance to travel, Hudner decided to help Brown get out of the plane himself. He didn't ask permission from the flight leader because he knew it would be denied.
 Hudner radioed, "I'm going in," then dumped his ordnance, dropped his flaps, and landed wheels up, hitting the hilly area hard. He got out and struggled through the snow to get to the downed plane. Hudner saw that Brown's right leg was crushed by the damaged instrument panel, and he was unable to pull him out  of the wreckage.
 Hudner kept packing snow into the smoking engine and talking to Brown as he drifted in and out of consciousness. When a U.S. helicopter arrived, the pilot worked with Hudner for forty-five minutes trying to get Brown out. They hacked at the plane with an ax, and even considered amputating Brown's trapped leg with a knife. The snow packed on the bottom of their boots prevented them from getting any firm footing
on the plane's wing. As nightfall approached, bringing temperatures as low as thirty degrees below zero, it was clear that Brown was dead. Hudner hated to leave the body behind, but the helicopter pilot couldn't fly in the mountainous terrain after dark. Reluctantly, the
two men returned to base camp.
 The next morning, reconnaissance showed that Brown's body, still in the cockpit, had been stripped of clothing during the night by enemy soldiers. Because of the hostile forces in the area, it was impossible to retrieve it. The following day, the commander of the Leyte ordered four Corsairs to napalm the downed plane so that Brown could have a warrior's funeral.
 By February 1951, the Leyte was back in port in the United States. In mid-March, Hudner found out that he was to be the first American serviceman in the Korean War to receive the Medal of Honor. Daisy Brown, the widow of Jesse Brown (who had been posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross), was present when President Harry Truman put the medal around Thomas Hudner's neck on April 13, 1951.

NBC's Robert Bazell previews some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast. Click to watch

By Chris Colvin, News Writer, Nightly News

An earlier version of this post obliquely confused and conflated regular "must-read" National Review writer Rich Lowry with former RNC Chairman Rich Bond. D'oh! Requesting a thousand pardons... or at least a commutation. The copy has been corrected below.

Hi. Lots going on today, sorry this is a bit late. Today we're whipping through the very well-received YouTube debate on CNN last night, then it's on to President Bush's latest speech on al Qaida and Iraq, and the news today that the plan for American troops there extends well into 2009, and how many bloggers have had it with the mainstream media's obsession with John Edwards' haircuts.. after one mainstream blogger makes a candid admission.

The Washington Post's Tom Shales has two salient critiques of the YouTube debate: Anderson Cooper was too quick to cut the candidates off, and CNN made it very difficult to see the YouTube questions by placing them in a small box inside a big screen (and cutting away for reaction shots during the questions).  And the Chicago Tribune's Steve Johnson says among the losers are America's news anchors and Washington Bureau Chiefs.  National Review's Rich Lowry liked it too, and fires and amusing shot at the guys who were at either end of the lineup.

President Bush lashed out today over al-Qaida versus al-Qaida in Iraq, the threat to the U.S. and reasons to stay the course.  Kudos to the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin who effectively critiqued the President speech today in his column LAST THURSDAY. Click on the numerous links of supporting material.  John Aravosis at Americablog is furious.

In Iraq, The New York Times Michael Gordon who is, to put it kindly, "tight" with the big boys at the Pentagon, tells us on the front page today that American troops aren't going anywhere until at least the Summer of '09. Juan Cole writes in Salon that it is President Bush's own incompetence that has ushered in the resurgence of al Qaida   And BooMan notes a nugget from the new ABCNews/WashPost poll that shows Americans would just as soon see Congress take the reins from here.  Will Bunch at Attytood examines the name of the new plan and sees a connection to the thinking behind it.  Oh and the LA Times writes about the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which is drawing harsh resentment from some Iraqis.

ThinkProgress picks up on Alberto Gonzales's (inadvertent?) revelation that there's a lot more government spying going on in the U.S. than we know about.  Digby has a different take. She says Gonzales is just lying to Congress.  Oh and in his opening statement, Patrick Leahy points the finger definitely at Karl Rove, as RawStory notes.  And Muckraker picks up on Gonzales's comment that waterboarding may not be beyond the bounds of human decency.  
And here's something from Greenwald on executive privilege in light of last week's new White House claims.

Other political stuff. Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal's Monica Langley wrote about the time she recently spent with the Edwards family and came away with an incredibly personal and moving look at Elizabeth Edwards' mindset these days. (Warning: packs an emotional wallop.)

N=1 blogs at UniversalHealth about the status of SCHIP, which would expand insurance coverage to low income children. But Star Parker of Townhall calls SCHIP Medicaid for the middle class.

Blogger bonddad writes at DailyKos about the "wageless recovery."]  But Arthur C. Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute explains why income inequality is OK.

NOW is circulating a petition to try to force the media to stop trafficking in gender stereotypes.

Which brings us to the press and John Edwards' hair. The blogosphere on the left was on fire this weekend after Mark Ambinder said the following in his blog:
"There is a difference in the political reality: fairly or unfairly, a healthy chunk of the national political press corps doesn't like John Edwards. Fairly or unfairly, there's also a difference in narrative timing: when the first quarter ended, the press was trying to bury Edwards."
I'll let the responses speak for themselves.
Charles Pierce
Glenn Greenwald
Digby
Kos diarist dday
Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money
And John Edwards had a pretty good response himself last night.