James C. McCloughanA former high school wrestling coach and referee who once took to the mats at Michigan's Olivet College has been selected to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest personal military award for valor.
James C. McCloughan, 71, of South Haven, Mich. will be presented with the Medal of Honor by President Donald J. Trump in a ceremony in Washington, D.C. on July 31.
McCloughan was an Army medic who is credited with saving the lives of 10 members of his platoon during the Battle of Nui Yon Hill in Vietnam nearly 50 years ago.
Back in May 1969, McCloughan, then 23 years old, returned to the battlefield multiple times to retrieve wounded soldiers despite having been hit with shrapnel from a grenade and being shot in the arm.
Growing up in rural southwest Michigan, McCloughan was a four-sport athlete at Bangor High School. He then continued his academic and athletic career at Olivet College in Olivet, Mich. where he first took up wrestling. McCloughan wrestled for the Comets for four years at 130 pounds, compiling an overall record of 32-11-1. During his junior and senior seasons in 1967 and 1968, McCloughan served as team captain, won MIAA championships, and was voted Most Valuable Wrestler by his teammates.
After graduating from Olivet in 1968, McCloughan was about to start a teaching/coaching job at South Haven High School. However, that summer, McCloughan was drafted by the U.S. Army. With his college coursework in kinesiology, physiology and advanced first aid, McCloughan became an Army medic.
"I think they thought that maybe if I knew how to tape up an ankle, and had gone through those strapping classes that I'd gone through, that I might have a little bit of a heads up on some things that I was going to be facing," McCloughan said in a recent interview with the Army Times.
In that same interview, McCloughan also credited his athletic background as being vital as a medic to care for his fellow soldiers.
"I wouldn't say that I wasn't scared, because everybody's scared. But I've always said that I owe it to high school and college football and college wrestling," he said. "Those sports prepared me for the mental discipline I need in those situations, to go out and do my duty."
Two months after arriving at basic training at Fort Knox in Kentucky, McCloughan was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, to complete advanced training as a medical specialist. On his last day of training, McCloughan received deployment orders to Vietnam. He was assigned as a combat medic with Company C, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 196th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division. His Vietnam tour was from March 1969 to March 1970. It was just two months into that tour that McCloughan saved the lives of ten soldiers who were under attack by the North Vietnamese Army over the course of a two-day battle in May 1969. (A complete account of McCloughan's heroics is available online.)
Once discharged from the Army -- where he earned a number of honors, including a Combat Medics Badge, two Purple Hearts, and three Bronze Stars -- McCloughan returned to South Haven High School where he had originally signed a contract in 1968, to begin a decades-long career as an instructor, football coach, and, for 22 seasons, the school's wrestling coach, before retiring in 2008. In addition, he spent 25 years as a Michigan High School Athletic Association wrestling official.
Along the way, McCloughan earned a number of honors, including the Wolverine Conference Distinguished Service Award for his coaching. He was welcomed into the Michigan High School Coaches Hall of Fame in 2003 and the Olivet College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1987.
McCloughan learned he would be receiving the Army Medal of Honor with a call from President Trump on May 30.
According to the Army Times, Medal of Honor recipients are regularly asked to serve in a role as ambassadors for the Army, speaking at and attending official events. McCloughan appears to be eager to again serve his country in that capacity.
"The next few years will challenge me to make sure that I give that medal the proper honor, and that I use that medal to continue to serve others, and to continue to love those that need to be loved," McCloughan said. "This medal I'm only going to be wearing for the 89 men that went into that battle."
"This medal is all about love. It's a love story so deep in my soul that it's truly immeasurable."
The Medal of Honor is the nation's highest and most prestigious personal military decoration that may be awarded to recognize U.S. military service members who distinguished themselves by acts of valor.
James C. McCloughan is not the first former wrestler to be bestowed with this honor. Tom Norris, former University of Maryland wrestler who won back-to-back Atlantic Coast Conference titles (1965, 1966) for the Terps, was presented with the Medal of Honor for his actions as a U.S. Navy SEAL in the ground rescue of two downed U.S. pilots in April 1972.
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