Joe C. Paul

He then joined Company H, 2nd Battalion 4th Marines, 1st Marine Brigade, in Hawaii where he was promoted to private first class in December 1963 and to lance corporal in October 1964. With that unit, he sailed for the Far East, arriving in Chu Lai, Republic of Vietnam on May 7, 1965, where this unit was redesignated Company H, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division.

On August 18, 1965, while serving as a fire team leader with Company H, LCpl Paul placed himself between his wounded comrades and the enemy and delivered effective suppressive fire in order to divert the Viet Cong long enough to allow the casualties to be evacuated. He fought in this exposed position until he was mortally wounded. He succumbed to his wounds the next day, August 19, 1965.

In August 1963, after completing recruit training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, he was transferred to the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, where he underwent individual combat training with the Second Infantry Training Regiment, graduating in October 1963.

Lance Corporal Joe Calvin Paul (April 23, 1946 – August 19, 1965) was a United States Marine killed in the Vietnam War who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for diverting an attack long enough to allow the evacuation of wounded Marines during Operation Starlite near Chu Lai, Vietnam, on August 18, 1965. The medal was awarded on February 7, 1967, during a ceremony in the Office of Secretary of the Navy Paul H. Nitze, who presented the award to his parents.

Joe Calvin Paul was born on April 23, 1946, in Williamsburg, Kentucky. He graduated from grammar school and attended high school for one year before enlisting in the United States Marine Corps on April 26, 1963, in Dayton, Ohio, shortly after his seventeenth birthday.