GI hero gave his devotion and life

Paul Smith has been nominated for the nation's highest award for bravery.
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
The GIs were dirty, mosquito-bitten, fatigued, homesick. They had been on the road almost constantly for two weeks. Many had not slept in days.
At dawn April 4, they arrived at Baghdad International Airport to the sound of sporadic gunfire and the acrid smell of distant explosions. Breakfast was a mushy, prepackaged concoction the Army optimistically calls "pasta with vegetables."
Still, the mood was upbeat.
Reaching the airport meant the war was almost over. Some of the men broke out cheap cigars to celebrate.
Afterward, Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith and his combat engineers set about their mission that day, putting up a roadblock on the divided highway that connects the airport and the city of Baghdad. Then, just before 10 a.m., a sentry spotted Iraqi troops -- maybe 15 or 20 -- nearby. By the time Smith had a chance to look there were close to 100 enemies.
Smith had just 16 men.
He ordered his soldiers to take up fighting positions and called for a Bradley, a powerful armored vehicle. It arrived quickly and opened fire. The Americans thought they were in control until, inexplicably, the Bradley backed up and left.
Desertion
"Everybody was like, 'What the hell?'" Cpl. Daniel Medrano said. "We felt like we got left out there alone."
The outnumbered GIs faced intense Iraqi fire. Whether they would survive the next few minutes hinged largely on Smith. He was 33 years old, a husband and father of two.
A quarter-million Americans have served in the Iraq war. Paul Smith is the only one thus far nominated for the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for bravery.
Smith manned a .50-caliber machine gun that April day and sprayed a field of Iraqi soldiers as his men got to safety. He died moments later from a bullet to the head.
The courtyard where the fighting took place had little military importance. But the American position there secured the eastern flank for the U.S. forces occupying the airport, and the airport was, in the words of one officer, "the gateway to the future of Iraq." The 3rd Infantry Division secured the airport April 5.
Baghdad fell four days later.
To his men, Smith was like a character in the old war movies they had watched as kids, an infuriating, by-the-book taskmaster they called the "Morale Nazi."
Background
Growing up in Tampa, Fla., he and three siblings were raised by a single mother who worked two jobs to support the family. Smith was a so-so student, not much of an athlete, not particularly popular. His childhood was altogether unremarkable.
He studied woodworking in high school and did trim work for a contractor. After graduating in June 1989, Smith joined the Army. He was motivated not by patriotism but a desire to find a job offering more stability than the paycheck-to-paycheck life of a carpenter. As a new recruit, Smith left an impression of someone more interested in partying than marksmanship.
But by the time he got to Baghdad International Airport, Smith was a different man, a master of the soldier's art. On April 4, in the words of his commanding officer, Smith displayed "extraordinary heroism and uncommon valor without regard for his own life in order to save others ... in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service ..."
What Smith offered his men, Abraham Lincoln, in an earlier age, called "the last full measure of devotion."