Medal Of Honor Story You Hope His Mother Didn't Read, Seaman Jackson's Torpedoes

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
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From NYPL, fly leaf image on a book listing medals received in naval duty. Some hair raising accounts in there you just hope mothers of sailors didn't read. You'd lock your kid in a closet if you had any idea what they'd be up to, medal or no.

Here's one, no comment from his mother.

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' Seized a boat hook....(c)arefully guided the torpedoes '. And removed the caps. A first cousin of Dad's came back from WW2 with a shattered nervous system. He'd been defusing bombs for several years. Medal indeed.


No wonder Lucinda Ward Honstain's famous Reconciliation Quilt included this guy. He represents all the torpedo jumping Jacksons from 1861-1865.
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When my daughter joined the US Army as a Medic, I sweated every involvement our country seemed to get into.

I was particularly concerned with Bosnia and all the stupidity that was going on there. She was with the 10th Mountain Light Infantry Division and I was afraid they would be deployed there amidst all that craziness.

Once a parent, ALWAYS a parent.
 
Yes, thank goodness we have them. If one of my kids had chosen that as a career path, I'd either be in church daily or the cardiologist. Bless all of them.


Yikes! My kids are at the age when they are starting to tell me some of their stupider activities when younger. Thanks, guys!
Interesting thread, JPK!


Right? When mine got around to that age I got to the point of begging them not to fill me in. It's all in the past but boy, it'll still keep you up at night. It's all a lot different than what our service members risk themselves doing but you just know as proud as you'd be watching a MoH ceremony, a small part of your brain would be saying " Wish I didn't know that part ". Like UB said, " Once a parent, always a parent ".
 
With all due respect @JPK Huson 1863, who is this Seaman John Jackson? He doesn't appear on the US Navy list of Medal of Honor recipients.
This is a puzzler. John Jackson is also in the following Navy Department General Order listing men awarded "medals of honor" by the Secretary of the Navy for having "distinguished themselves by gallantry in action and other seamanlike qualities." The other men named (I didn't check them all) seem to be included included in the standard Medal of Honor lists. What happened with Seaman John Jackson? I don't find his name on the list of MoH revoked in 1916.

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[New York Tribune, May 7, 1864]​
John Jackson is named in several other newspaper notices at the time, with no additional information included.

He apparently is the John Jackson of Baltimore, who received a pension in 1904. The Balt. Sun mentions that he "performed a feat of daring during the siege of Charleston." (June 6).
 
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A bit more digging finds an answer, at least to the question as to why seaman Jackson is not included in our lists of MoH recipients. From p.14 of General Orders and Circulars of the Navy Department (1863-87), comes the following:
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So far no further explanation -- though I'd love to find it.

Still, the gist of the OP still holds. When the award was first announced, seaman Jackson's parents had good reason to be anxious about his seeming heroic recklessness.Later, perhaps, replaced by relief (and embarrassment).
 
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