The society said the award comes as attention has recently focused on Polish-American bonds in uniform, recalling a US Medal of Honor ceremony for Sergeant Michael Ollis, who saved a Polish officer in Afghanistan in 2013.
“For moral symmetry it is worth recalling the story of a Polish corporal in the US Marine Corps, Mateusz Erszkowicz, fighting to the end to save his American commander Sergeant Alan Sherman and three other crewmates,” the society wrote, referring also to John Todd II, Matthew Crawford and Patrick Adle.
It recounted that on June 29, 2004, Erszkowicz was traveling in the lead Humvee of a convoy south of Baghdad when the vehicle hit a mine near Rustamiya.
“I started shouting my colleagues’ names to check who was conscious … I pull my friend out … I see another with a shot neck. Blood is literally spurting … I run to the sergeant, pull him out … After a few minutes I check the pulse. Zero,” Erszkowicz said in an account cited by the society.
He also recalled being wounded and later realizing that only he and Crawford survived. “I was running on such adrenaline that I felt nothing … I don’t know. Only me and Matt Crawford survived,” he wrote, according to the statement.
The society said Erszkowicz was hospitalized in Baghdad and then transported to Ramstein. It also described a funeral for Sherman in New Jersey, where a rabbi called him “a tough marine with a soft heart,” and said the episode was “a lesson in patriotism,” as described in the society’s note.
“When the memory of Polish-American brotherhood in arms and readiness to die for one another suddenly comes alive, it is time to remind people of Mateusz Erszkowicz,” the society said, adding it would “add a Polish Mission of Jan Karski medal” to his US military decorations.
(jh)
Source: PAP