11/10/2025
Amazing!!!
He was a dentist who became a wall of bullets—and the U.S. government refused to call him a hero for 58 years.
His name was Captain Benjamin Lewis Salomon. And on July 7, 1944, he made a choice that most humans, if we're honest, could never make.
He chose to die so others could live.
THE MAN WHO WASN'T SUPPOSED TO FIGHT
Ben Salomon didn't set out to be a warrior. He was a dentist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin—a man who fixed teeth, not one who took lives. But when World War II called, he enlisted.
By 1944, he was serving with the 105th Infantry Regiment on Saipan, a strategic island in the Pacific where American and Japanese forces were locked in one of the war's bloodiest battles. Salomon wasn't carrying a rifle on patrol. He was running a field hospital—a makeshift surgery tent where mangled soldiers were brought to be saved or to die with dignity.
His job was to heal. The Geneva Convention protected him for that reason. Medical personnel weren't combatants. They were neutral. Sacred, even in war.
But war doesn't care about rules.
JULY 7, 1944: THE DAY EVERYTHING CHANGED
The morning of July 7 started like any other desperate day on Saipan. The field hospital was fifteen yards behind the front lines—close enough to hear the gunfire, close enough to save lives quickly.
Wounded men covered every available surface. Blood-soaked bandages. Morphine shots. Frantic surgeries performed under canvas in tropical heat. Salomon moved between patients, doing what he could with limited supplies and unlimited casualties.
Then the screaming started.
Not from the wounded. From outside.
The Japanese forces had launched a massive banzai charge—a suicidal human wave attack involving thousands of soldiers. They were overrunning American positions. And they were headed straight for the hospital.
Within minutes, Japanese soldiers burst into the tent.
Chaos erupted. Wounded men who couldn't move watched in horror. Medics froze. The enemy was inside the hospital, bayonets drawn, ready to kill everyone—combatants and non-combatants alike.
Ben Salomon didn't freeze.
THE CHOICE
According to surviving accounts, Salomon killed the first Japanese soldier with his bare hands. Then another. Then grabbed a rifle from a wounded American and shot a third soldier who was bayoneting patients in their cots.
But he knew the math. There weren't three enemy soldiers. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, pouring through the broken American lines. The field hospital would be overrun in minutes.
Every wounded man inside would die.
Unless someone bought them time.
Salomon made his decision in seconds. He turned to the medics and gave an order: "Get them out. Now."
Then he did something that violated every principle of medical neutrality, every protection afforded by international law: he picked up a machine gun.
THE LAST STAND
Salomon positioned himself at the forward-most machine gun position—a tripod-mounted weapon about 50 yards in front of the hospital tent. From there, he had a clear field of fire. From there, he could see them coming.
From there, he could hold the line.
The medics scrambled. Wounded soldiers who could walk helped those who couldn't. They dragged, carried, crawled toward the rear positions. Minutes felt like hours. Every second mattered.
And every second, Ben Salomon bought for them.
The Japanese charged in waves. Salomon fired until the barrel glowed red. When they got close, he shot them point-blank. When they surrounded him, he fought hand-to-hand. When they bayoneted him, he kept firing.
He had one mission: keep them away from the hospital tent until every wounded man was evacuated.
He didn't stop. Not when he was shot. Not when he was stabbed. Not when the odds became mathematically impossible.
He fought until he physically couldn't fight anymore.
WHAT THEY FOUND
When American forces retook the position hours later, they found Captain Benjamin Salomon slumped over his machine gun.
He had 76 wounds on his body. Twenty-four bullet holes. More than twenty bayonet wounds. His hands were still on the gun.
And surrounding his position—in a grotesque perimeter—were the bodies of 98 Japanese soldiers.
Ninety-eight.
One dentist with a machine gun had killed 98 attacking soldiers in his final stand. The hospital tent behind him was empty. Every single wounded man had been evacuated.
Everyone under his care survived.
Ben Salomon had traded his life for theirs. One for dozens. And he'd made it count.
THE 58-YEAR WAIT
You'd think the story ends with immediate recognition. A Medal of Honor. A hero's burial. National headlines.
It didn't.
Salomon was initially recommended for the Medal of Honor—America's highest military decoration. But the recommendation was rejected.
Why? Because he had violated his status as a medical officer. The Geneva Convention protected medics and doctors precisely because they didn't fight. By picking up that machine gun, Salomon had technically become a combatant. And the military brass worried that honoring him might set a dangerous precedent.
Never mind that he saved dozens of lives. Never mind that his sacrifice was selfless and extraordinary. The rules said medics don't fight, and the rules mattered more than the man.
For 58 years, Ben Salomon's extraordinary courage went officially unhonored. His family knew. His surviving comrades knew. But the nation didn't.
JUSTICE, DELAYED
In the 1990s, a military dentist named Dr. Robert West learned about Salomon's story and couldn't let it go. He began a campaign to reopen the case. He gathered testimonies from survivors. He compiled evidence. He fought the military bureaucracy with the same determination Salomon had shown on Saipan.
Finally, in 2002—58 years after that July morning—President George W. Bush awarded Captain Benjamin Lewis Salomon the Medal of Honor.
It was presented to his family. Ben wasn't there to receive it. He'd been dead for more than half a century, his remains buried in a military cemetery, his story known to few.
But now, officially, America acknowledged what should have been obvious from the beginning:
Ben Salomon was a hero.
THE MAN BEHIND THE LEGEND
Here's what gets lost in the statistics—the 98 enemy dead, the 76 wounds, the 58-year wait:
Ben Salomon was 33 years old when he died. He had a family. He had dreams beyond the war. He'd trained for years to heal people, not kill them.
But when the moment came—when he had to choose between the person he'd trained to be and the person the moment required—he chose the latter.
He became a killer so his patients could live. He abandoned his medical neutrality so wounded men who couldn't defend themselves wouldn't die helpless.
That's the choice that haunts and inspires: he didn't do what he was supposed to do. He did what needed to be done.
THE LESSON
Ben Salomon's story matters because it reminds us that courage doesn't always look like we expect. Sometimes it's not about following orders or staying in your lane. Sometimes it's about recognizing the moment when the rules don't matter anymore—when all that matters is the person in front of you who needs protecting.
It matters because it shows that heroism often comes with a cost beyond death. Salomon died in 1944, but his sacrifice wasn't recognized until 2002. He never knew if his actions would be honored or condemned. He did it anyway.
And it matters because it asks us a question we all hope we'll never have to answer:
If you were in that tent, and the enemy was coming, and the wounded couldn't run—what would you do?
Ben Salomon already answered.
JULY 7, 1944
He was a dentist from Milwaukee.
He was supposed to heal, not fight.
He was protected by international law.
But when hundreds of enemy soldiers came for the wounded men in his care, he didn't think about rules or consequences or survival.
He thought about the men in those cots who couldn't protect themselves.
So he picked up a machine gun and became their shield.
Ninety-eight enemy soldiers fell before he did.
Every wounded man under his care survived.
And America took 58 years to say what should have been said on July 8, 1944:
Thank you, Captain Salomon.
Your courage didn't fit the rulebook.
But it saved lives.
And that's what heroes do.
