He Gave It All For 'His Boys'

On Monday, the nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor, will be given to a soldier who served in Iraq, the first such award for that conflict.

Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, a veteran of the first Gulf War, was 33 when died in combat in the early days of the current hostilities in Iraq.

President Bush will present his family with the medal on the anniversary of his death.

CBS News Correspondent Tracy Smith has the recipient's story, and The Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen speaks with his wife.

Tracy Smith says the honor is so prestigious that Gen. George Patton once said he'd sell his immortal soul for that medal, and Harry Truman said he'd prefer it to being president.

"Paul was very shy person," Smith's wife, Birgit, told Chen Monday. "He would be embarrassed right now. He never wanted to stand in the spotlight and get anything. It was just Paul. ...He would say we're overdoing it -- he just did what he had to do that day."

But, adds Birgit, she can't even put into words how overwhelmingly proud she is.

And the stories she hears from members of her late husband's platoon make her even prouder, she said to Chen: "They're all very glad he did what he did that day, because they made it home (due to his actions). Of course, they are -- their hearts ache, still, but they're very glad that they made it home."

What's more, "Their mothers and wives are writing me and letting me know how thankful they are and they are sorry that Paul lost his life, but they're very thankful their sons and husbands made it home."

Sgt. Smith, reports Tracy Smith, was deployed at the tip of the spear. He fought with the first wave of soldiers driving north to Baghdad, whipped by sandstorms, surrounded by the thunder of unfinished battle.

On the morning of April 4, 2003, while setting up a roadblock by Baghdad's international airport, his company was surprised by a sudden storm of Iraqi fire.

"Things just started getting crazy, there were shots coming in from every angle," Pvt. Michael Seaman of the 3rd Infantry Division said a few days later.

"I was going to be the first one to go through the wall, and he pushed me back and said, 'No. I got this,'" recalled the 3rd Infantry's Sgt. Matthew Keller.

With bullets blazing, Sgt. Smith jumped on a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on an abandoned truck and fired at three Iraqi positions, while single-handedly providing cover so his outnumbered soldiers could escape.

The Army says from 50 to 100 men were able to get to safety while Sgt. Smith was on that gun.

Smith was shot in the neck and killed.

"If it wasn't for Sgt. Smith…everybody might not have got out as safe as they did," marvels Pvt. Seaman.

The Medal of Honor that Sgt. Smith's actions that day earned for him is the rarest distinction given to soldiers. It recognizes extreme bravery that goes beyond the call of duty.

The medal has not been awarded since 1993.

"He died a hero in my eyes. Nothing less," says Pvt. Seaman.

On the day of the battle, Birgit would write a letter to a husband who had already dead. "It never crossed my mind," she says, "that Paul would die. Never. Not once. Not my man."

Sgt. Smith and Birgit met in Germany in 1989. On their first date, inspired by his favorite movie, "Top Gun," he serenaded her under her hotel window at 3 a.m.

"You have to picture him down on one knee," Birgit says, "and having his arms up like that and singing, 'I Lost That Loving Feeling.' It was kind of romantic. You know, it was cool."

But in 11 years of marriage, Birgit says, she would always come second: "It was first the army and boys, then the wife. …You learn to accept it, you know. He would have done anything for his boys."

Sgt. Smith's mother, Janice Pvirre says, "I am so humbled that our country is going to bestow this on my son."

For a mother, even the Army's highest honor is no consolation: "I guess it's just another medal. It's not going to bring my son home. I'm proud and I'm humbled. But it hurts," she says, weeping quietly.

"So many people die in the Iraq war," Birgit says. "But with Paul, he's not a statistic. …I know that Paul will go into history, and his name will never, ever be forgotten."

After two years, the family still feels the loss as if it happened yesterday.

Jessica, 18, and David, 11, are proud of the medal, but miss their dad.

"I get mad at him, because it's really not fair for him to be up there and I'm down here," David laments. "It's like my best friend is gone now. …I would rather have him back than have the Medal of Honor."

"Usually," Jessica says, "the father walks the bride down the aisle. And I'm not gonna have that. You know, I won't have him be there when I have grandchildren. He won't be there for my graduation."

"I still wear his ring," Birgit says. "And as long as I have the ring on my finger and the breath in me, he will be my husband."

The consummate soldier, Sgt. Smith made all of his men write a final letter home, in case they didn't return.

Pvirre reads his aloud, crying: "As I sit here getting ready to go to war once again, I realize that I have left some things left unsaid. I love you and I don't want you to worry. …There are two ways to come home: stepping off the plane, and being carried off the plane. It doesn't matter how I come home, because I am prepared to give all that I am, to insure that all my boys make it home."

David will be the one to receive the medal on Monday.