Late Monday evening – it was probably in the small hours of the morning yesterday – after the last pages of the Sun had been put to bed, we went into our study with a glass of wine and sat down to do one last thing. By then the neighborhood was asleep, and the kind of peace had settled over the city that we treasure for collecting our thoughts at the end of day. The thing we’d been waiting to do was to log onto www.whitehouse.gov and watch the video of the awarding of the Medal of Honor to Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith.

The medal of honor is the highest award for bravery in combat that a president can bestow. It has been called the medal that is impossible to alloy. With all the heroism from all the GIs in Iraq, Sergeant Smith’s medal of honor is the first to have been awarded in the war that erupted on September 11. As Sergeant Smith’s widow, his step-daughter and son stood with him, President Bush, speaking in his wonderfully awkward way, told the story of what happened two years ago near the Baghdad airport.

“Sergeant Smith was leading about three dozen men who were using a courtyard next to a watchtower to build a temporary jail for captured enemy prisoners. As they were cleaning the courtyard, they were surprised by about a hundred of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard. With complete disregard for his own life and under constant enemy fire, Sergeant Smith rallied his men and led a counterattack. Seeing that his wounded men were in danger of being overrun, and that enemy fire from the watchtower had pinned them down, Sergeant Smith manned a 50-caliber machine gun atop a damaged armored vehicle.

“From a completely exposed position, he killed as many as 50 enemy soldiers as he protected his men,” the president related, adding: “Sergeant Smith’s leadership saved the men in the courtyard, and he prevented an enemy attack on the aid station just up the road. Sergeant Smith continued to fire until he took a fatal round to the head. His actions in that courtyard saved the lives of more than 100 American soldiers.”

Then, the president turned and presented the medal itself – with its beautiful light-blue ribbon with white stars – to Sergeant Smith’s son, David. The young man stood quite stoically. But we couldn’t help thinking of something the president said when, on another occasion, he spoke of trying to comfort family members who had lost a loved one in combat. He was aware that they would have just preferred to have their father or mother or son or daughter or brother or sister back.

This is what we were thinking as we watched Sergeant Smith’s son as the president of America handed him the great medal. It’s hard not to be moved by his father’s heroism. Or by the image of the sergeant’s young son standing with his mother and his sister and President Bush, but without his slain father. The young man did his father proud. For the rest of his life he will know that the Iraqi people are grateful for his father’s sacrifice in liberating them, and we Americans for his valor in protecting us.