The Platoon Sergeant Who Gave His Life to Repel Dozens of Iraqi troops with a .50 Cal

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In April 2003, Smith fought through a hellish firefight, sacrificing his own life to save countless others, becoming the first American service member to earn the Medal of Honor after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

If you've served in the U.S. Army at some point over the past decade, you've probably heard of Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith. Within the ranks, his name has become synonymous with extraordinary courage in the face of overwhelming odds. And for good reason.

In April 2003, Smith fought through a hellish firefight, sacrificing his own life to save countless others, becoming the first American service member to earn the Medal of Honor after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

By 2003, Smith, a 33-year-old combat engineer who had enlisted in the Army in 1989, was already a veteran of Desert Storm and the war in Kosovo. And as a platoon sergeant with Bravo Company, 11th Engineer Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, he was one of the first soldiers to cross the berm into Iraq during the initial invasion.

On April 4, two weeks after the official start of the war, Smith's company, having just arrived at the Baghdad International Airport after an all-night convoy through the desert, found themselves occupying a section of a four-lane highway split by a median and bordered on both sides by high walls, which Smith worried obscured the company's view of potential enemy avenues of approach

"It was very, very quiet," Lt. Brian Borkowski, Smith's platoon leader, later told The Christian Science Monitor. "Every two minutes or so, there was gunfire, but it was so sporadic that it made it kind of eerie. We started to realize that we had surprised the heck of [the Iraqis], and they were just waking up to find Americans all around them."

Smith called for a bulldozer. He had a plan: Plow a hole through the wall. On the other side, the soldiers discovered a courtyard, and a call from up higher ordered them to build a temporary detention facility there to house a group of Iraqi prisoners of war. But first, the area needed to be cleared, which meant that a gate on the far side of the courtyard needed to be opened lest enemy soldiers were on the other side waiting to attack.