Bruised but unbowed, two sides in a heated battle over the right to raise a pole carrying the American flag have returned to their corners.

Back in Mississippi where he grew up, highway signs honor Col. Van T. Barfoot. In March, the state legislature designated a stretch of state Route 16 near Carthage “The Col. Van T. Barfoot Medal of Honor Highway.“ At the dedication last month at the Big Horn Restaurant, Central District Transportation Commissioner Dick Hall said this:

The Vietnam War is not history to Brian Thacker. He thinks about it every day. As a U.S. Army first lieutenant, Thacker received a Medal of Honor for directing air strikes and artillery fire toward the attacking North Vietnamese army while defending a small hilltop base in Kon Tum Province in March 1971.

The Vietnam War is not history to Brian Thacker. He thinks about it every day. As a U.S. Army first lieutenant, Thacker received a Medal of Honor for directing air strikes and artillery fire toward the attacking North Vietnamese army while defending a small hilltop base in Kon Tum Province in March 1971. Thacker and his outnumbered troops held the hill for about four hours before he organized a withdrawal. While his troops escaped, Thacker stayed behind to provide covering fire with his M-16 rifle.