Medals

On his fifth Memorial Day holiday as a U.S. soldier, Spc. Erik Oropeza had much to reflect on. Only 22, he has felt the earth shudder from mortar and bomb blasts, faced down enemies who outnumbered and outgunned him, and seen good friends die. While others took Monday off to enjoy picnics with their families, Oropeza's thoughts were with the men who stood with him through the test of combat. "I don't celebrate Memorial Day like other people do," he said. "It's a sad day for me."

Sean Andrew Stokes received a hero's welcome when he returned home to Northern California from Iraq after his first tour of duty in early 2005. The young Marine was glad to be home, he told a television reporter at the airport, but added: "We mourn the guys we lost and rejoice with the guys who came back." In the fall of that year, he again deployed with the Camp Pendleton-based 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment. Then in 2007, he extended his enlistment once more and started his third combat tour.

More than a quarter-century after his death and 56 years after he single-handedly took out three enemy machine-gun nests in the Korean War, Army Master Sgt. Woodrow Wilson Keeble was awarded the Medal of Honor on Monday -- the first Sioux to receive the nation's top decoration for bravery in battle.

The Marines from the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion had been warned about the great danger of their assignment in Iraq: to eliminate insurgent strongholds in the desert stretches of the Euphrates River Valley. On the hot, dry early morning of Aug. 2, 2007, they saw why. While patrolling south of the town of Rawah, one platoon was ambushed by a suicide car bomb, machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades. In the first burst, one Marine was killed and another critically wounded.

Jim Scherr isn't conceding anything. The chief executive of the U.S. Olympic Committee is merely being realistic in saying China probably will win the most medals at the Beijing Games That's not supposed to matter. The idea of the Olympics is to unite people in the spirit of fair play, but the medal standings are inevitably twisted into validation of political systems. China had the fourth-highest medal total at Atlanta in 1996, third-best behind the U.S.

In the middle of 2001, Marine Sgt. Jeffrey Lynn Kirk was assigned a job as a marksmanship instructor. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, he requested a transfer to the infantry and was part of the 2003 assault on Baghdad. When he was severely wounded in the leg during a fierce battle in Fallouja on Nov. 10, 2004, he demanded to get back to his squad as soon as his injuries were healed. His enlistment was almost up, but he extended so he could remain in Iraq. On Dec.

It was an act of bravery on an unusual scale: Thirteen Los Angeles police officers repeatedly entered a fire-engulfed retirement home, kicking down locked doors and navigating smoke-choked hallways to rescue 80 senior citizens. But somehow, due to a bureaucratic mix-up, the 1996 incident never received official recognition from the LAPD. Now, more than a decade later, Police Chief William J.

When he graduated from Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego, Christopher Adlesperger's family was there to show support. And after he was killed in combat in Iraq, the family gathered at the hometown airport in Albuquerque to await the arrival of his body. On Friday, his extended family assembled again, this time at Camp Pendleton, where they accepted a Navy Cross awarded to him posthumously.

President Bush presented the Congressional Gold Medal to agriculture scientist Norman Borlaug, whose work on high-yield, disease-resistant varieties of wheat is credited with starting the "Green Revolution" and alleviating starvation in India and Pakistan in the 1960s.

ON THE WEB Brazil's desire to use the Pan Am Games as a means to push its 2016 Olympics bid was evident, writes Philip Hersh. Go to \o7latimes.com/sports.