Leo Smith was in Mexico in 1950 when he heard North Korea had invaded its neighbor to the south. Fresh off a five-year stint in the Army, Smith had driven down from Los Angeles to get married.
But suddenly, the first shots were fired in what would become known as the Korean War, and Smith had no intention of sitting it out.
“As soon as I heard about the invasion, we got in the car and drove back to L.A. so I could reenlist,” Smith told the Chattanooga Free Press, then the city’s afternoon newspaper, in 1996 for a story looking back on the “Forgotten War.”
It’s probably a safe guess that not many people would let an invasion in another part of the world that caused no immediate threat to their own country interrupt the excitement of getting married, but Leo Smith was not most people. A 25-year Army veteran who lived a life of service to his country, Smith devoted his final decade to the idea of a museum in Chattanooga to highlight the heroes who earned the nation’s highest military award, the Medal of Honor.