11-16-13 megellas-medal of honor push

Fond du Lac congressman Tom Petri  joined U.S. Senator John Cornyn and eight other  House and Senate Members in sending a letter to Secretary of the Army John McHugh urging him to reconsider Army Lieutenant Colonel Jim  Megellas for the Medal of Honor for his “extraordinary acts of heroism and bravery at the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.”    Petri says during the battle, Megellas and his unit of the 82^nd Airborne Division came face-to-face with a Nazi Mark V Panther tank that threatened their mission and would have certainly inflicted hundreds of casualties.  Without hesitation, Megellas attacked the tank single-handedly disabling it with one grenade and throwing another inside the top hatch of the tank.  Megellas then led his men to Herresbach, Belgium, liberating the town without sustaining one casualty.  The letter says  “We seek the Medal of Honor for Megellas based on ‘compelling evidence of  error’ made during the award process in 1945,”  and believe further reconsideration of the award is  appropriate and warranted.   Megellas was born and grew up in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin and now lives in Colleyville, Texas.