And he wasn't done:
His back wound had yet to fully heal when Dunham returned to the front. On Jan. 22, his battalion was surrounded by German tanks at Holtzwihr, France, and most of the men were forced to surrender.
Dunham hid in a sauerkraut barrel outside a barn but was discovered the next morning. As the two German soldiers who found him were patting him down, they came across a pack of cigarettes in his pocket and began fighting over it. They never finished their search, so they missed a pistol in a shoulder holster under his arm.
Later in the day, his two captors transported him toward German lines. The driver stopped at a bar, the second soldier's attention wandered and Dunham shot him in the head. He set off toward American lines in subzero temperatures.
By the time he encountered U.S. engineers working on a bridge over the Ill River, his feet and ears were frostbitten. A medic working to save his feet from amputation told him that the commanding officer had intended to recommend him for the Distinguished Service Cross but had changed his mind. The young man from Illinois, the officer had decided, deserved the Medal of Honor.
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"You learn more from losing than you do from winning." Lou Pinella