Transcript Of Charles H. Coolidge Jr.’s Eulogy Of His Father Saturday, April 17, 2021 - by John Shearer
A highlight of Friday’s memorial service for Medal of Honor recipient Charles H. Coolidge at First Presbyterian Church was the roughly 18-minute eulogy given by his son, retired Lt. Gen. Charles H. Coolidge Jr.
Gen. Coolidge, who had his own military service graduating from the Air Force Academy and serving in the U.S. Air Force from 1968-2004 commanding an Air Refueling Wing, told plenty of stories of his father not mentioned in the citations of his heroism in World War II.
By CHATTANOOGA TIMES FREE PRESS, TENN. | | Published: April 7, 2021 CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (Tribune News Service) Charles Henry Coolidge, Sr., the country s oldest Medal of Honor recipient, died peacefully on Tuesday at CHI Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga, Tenn. He was 99. Coolidge received the nation s highest military honor for valor for his actions in the wooded mountains of France in October 1944, when he assumed command of an isolated group of 28 men, then defied the German army and two tanks for four days of continuous fighting. Coolidge was presented the Medal of Honor by Lt. Gen. Wade H. Haislip in a rare battlefield ceremony June 18, 1945, at a bombed-out airfield near Dornstadt, Germany.