CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Each year the recipients of the highest military award for valor in combat hold a gathering of all the living recipients of the Medal of Honor. And this year the recipients return to East Tennessee for a third time in almost a decade.
“It is incredible, you think about how many recipients have come out of East Tennessee,” Vince Butler of the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center said. The 35 counties that make up the East Tennessee region include 15 recipients. For perspective, of the almost 41 million troops who have served in the armed forces only about 3,500 have received the Medal of Honor dating back to the Civil War.
The gathering is this year in Chattanooga, known as the birthplace of the medal after the first recipients earned the honor during a brave raid on a train near that city during the Civil War. They are known and the “Andrews’ Raiders.” The honor returns to East Tennessee after Knoxville hosted the the gathering in 2014 and again in the fall of 2022…