John D . Hawk John Druse " Bud " Hawk ( born May 30 , 1924 ) is a former United States Army soldier and a recipient of the United States military ' s highest decoration , the Medal of Honor , for his actions in World War II during the battle of the Falaise pocket . Biography . Hawk was born in San Francisco , California , and grew up in the Rolling Bay area of Bainbridge Island , Washington . He graduated from Bainbridge High School in 1943 and joined the Army two weeks later from Bremerton , Washington . By August 20 , 1944 , Hawk was serving in Europe as a sergeant in Company E , 359th Infantry Regiment , 90th Infantry Division . During a German counterattack on that day , near Chambois , France , he was wounded in the leg but continued to fight and , in order to direct the shots of friendly tank destroyers , he willingly exposed himself to intense enemy fire . For his actions during the battle , he was issued the Medal of Honor on July 13 , 1945 . The medal was formally presented to him by President Harry Truman . Hawk recovered from his wounds and continued to serve in combat . He was wounded three more times before the end of the war , earning a total of four Purple Heart s . In 1945 , Hawk returned from the war and then attended the University of Washington , graduating with a bachelor ' s degree in biology . For more than thirty years he worked as a teacher and principal in the Central Kitsap School District . He currently lives in Bremerton . On April 5 , 2008 , Hawk received the Medal of Honor flag in the Capitol rotunda in Olympia , Washington . He was presented the flag by Brigadier General Gordon Toney , commander of the Washington Army National Guard . Hawk said of his Medal of Honor : " What I did was not such a big thing . I never did anything more than the people I served with . The [ Medal of Honor ] is a symbol and it stands for service , everybody ' s service . I did it for the people who were there and they were doing the same thing for me . " Medal of Honor citation . Sergeant Hawk ' s official Medal of Honor citation reads : He manned a light machinegun on 20 August 1944 , near Chambois , France , a key point in the encirclement which created the Falaise Pocket . During an enemy counterattack , his position was menaced by a strong force of tanks and infantry . His fire forced the infantry to withdraw , but an artillery shell knocked out his gun and wounded him in the right thigh . Securing a bazooka , he and another man stalked the tanks and forced them to retire to a wooded section . In the lull which followed , Sgt . Hawk reorganized 2 machinegun squads and , in the face of intense enemy fire , directed the assembly of 1 workable weapon from 2 damaged guns . When another enemy assault developed , he was forced to pull back from the pressure of spearheading armor . Two of our tank destroyers were brought up . Their shots were ineffective because of the terrain until Sgt . Hawk , despite his wound , boldly climbed to an exposed position on a knoll where , unmoved by fusillades from the enemy , he became a human aiming stake for the destroyers . Realizing that his shouted fire directions could not be heard above the noise of battle , he ran back to the destroyers through a concentration of bullets and shrapnel to correct the range . He returned to his exposed position , repeating this performance until 2 of the tanks were knocked out and a third driven off . Still at great risk , he continued to direct the destroyers ' fire into the Germans ' wooded position until the enemy came out and surrendered . Sgt . Hawk ' s fearless initiative and heroic conduct , even while suffering from a painful wound , was in large measure responsible for crushing 2 desperate attempts of the enemy to escape from the Falaise Pocket and for taking more than 500 prisoners .