Every Medal of Honor Recipient has a story worth telling. At the National Medal of Honor Museum, a photograph of William Charette selecting the World War II Unknown Soldier in 1958 is featured in “Snapshots of a Life” on the exhibit deck. It captures a remarkable moment in the life of a man whose service extended far beyond the battlefield.

On May 26, 1958, three flag-draped caskets rested on the deck of the USS Canberra, off the Virginia coast. The casket in the center held the remains of an unidentified American service member killed during the Korean War. On either side rested the remains of two unidentified Americans who had died during World War II.

Only one of the World War II Unknowns would be chosen for burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

The man entrusted with that selection was Navy Hospital Corpsman First Class William R. Charette, a 26-year-old Medal of Honor Recipient.

Charette stepped forward with a wreath as the wind whipped across the ship’s deck.

“It was a very formal occasion,” he later recalled in a 2011 interview with The Ledger. “It was windy, and you could hear the flags covering the coffins flapping.” 

There was no way to distinguish between the two World War II caskets. No identifying information. No indication of which serviceman had died in Europe and which had died in the Pacific.

Charette approached the casket on his right, placed the wreath upon it, and saluted.

Five years earlier, he had been the one fighting to bring wounded Americans home.

Getting It Over With

William Richard Charette was born on March 29, 1932, in Ludington, Michigan. Both of his parents died when he was five, leaving Charette and his sister in the care of an uncle. When that uncle was drafted during World War II, the children moved to a great-uncle’s dairy farm.

Years later, Charette could still find humor in his childhood. Asked about fear during a Library of Congress interview, he chuckled: “If you want to learn fear, have the good parochial nuns teach you. They’ll teach you the true meaning of fear.”

Charette remembered arriving as a city boy, unaccustomed to the demands of farm life. His Uncle Charlie put him straight to work cleaning the horse barn. The smell was so overwhelming that Charette complained he was going to be sick.

His uncle wasn't particularly sympathetic. “Don’t worry, you won’t throw up,” Charette recalled his uncle’s words. “Just keep at it, and it won’t bother you at all.”

“And by God, was he right,” Charette chuckled.

The farm was one of the county's largest dairy operations. With much of the nation's workforce mobilized for war, Charette, his uncle, and a 19-year-old farmhand managed the work themselves.

After high school, Charette found summer employment aboard the car ferries crossing Lake Michigan. The vessels transported freight cars and passengers, giving him an early taste of life at sea.

Meanwhile, another war was unfolding overseas. In December 1950, Life magazine published photographs of the brutal fighting at Korea's Chosin Reservoir. Charette remembered seeing those images and knowing that military service was likely in his future. The draft was underway, but men his age weren't being called yet. Although jobs were available, employers were reluctant to invest in young men who might soon leave for military service.

On New Year's Eve, Charette and four friends who had worked on the Great Lakes made a decision: They would enlist.

“We decided, well, let's get it over with,” Charette recalled. And on January 10, 1951, the 18-year-old was sworn into the Navy at Great Lakes, Illinois.

His sister was a nurse, and medical work was among the assignments he requested. The Navy needed hospital corpsmen, so Charette was sent to medical training. After a year at a naval hospital in Charleston, South Carolina, he volunteered to serve with the Marines.

By January 1953, Hospital Corpsman Third Class Charette was in Korea with Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division.

He was 20 years old.

The Marines Called Him “Doc”

By March 1953, the Korean War had settled into a bitter struggle for strategic positions along a relatively fixed front.

Three contested hills near the 38th parallel had been nicknamed Reno, Vegas, and Carson by the Marines fighting over them. “Because every time you went up them, you were gambling with your life," Charette said.

On March 27, two days before Charette’s 21st birthday, Fox Company was ordered to retake Outpost Vegas from Chinese forces.

The weather was beautiful. The sun was shining. And the Marines were heading into a deadly fight.

As they advanced across a rice paddy toward the hill, Charette's lieutenant told him to follow once he reached a nearby stream. Charette later remembered running so fast that he nearly overtook the officer.

Soon, the Marines were under heavy fire, and the casualties were mounting. Charette moved among the wounded, providing medical care wherever he was needed. While treating one injured Marine, he spotted an enemy grenade rolling toward them.

He threw himself over the Marine, using his body and medical pack to shield the wounded man from the blast. The explosion knocked Charette unconscious, tore away his helmet, and destroyed his medical supplies. When he regained consciousness, he continued treating the wounded, tearing strips from his own clothing to make bandages.

At another point in the fighting, Marines carrying a badly wounded man reached a collapsed section of trench. To get him across, someone had to stand above the trench, exposed to enemy fire. Charette volunteered.

“I was pretty young and strong at the time,” he later recalled, explaining how he instructed the Marines to pass the wounded man to him so they could lift him across. 

He repeated the maneuver to help additional wounded Marines reach safety.

The fighting continued through the night. By the following day, American forces had regained the outpost.

Charette had suffered wounds to his face and head, but he would later downplay their severity. Much of the blood covering his uniform, he explained, had come from treating other Marines.

“I Don't Want It”

Charette was initially recommended for the Navy Cross for his actions at Outpost Vegas. As the recommendation moved through the chain of command, it was elevated to the Medal of Honor.

Charette objected: “When they came and told me they'd moved it up to a Medal of Honor, I immediately went to our captain and told him, ‘I don't want it.’ I didn't think I earned it.”

Charette was one of five Navy hospital corpsmen awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions during the Korean War. He was the only one who lived to receive it; the other four received the award posthumously.

On January 12, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented Charette with the Medal of Honor at the White House. As the president leaned toward him during the ceremony, Charette remembered Eisenhower sharing a personal detail: His own son was serving in Korea.

Charette accepted the Medal, but he remained reluctant to claim the recognition.

“You try to wear it in respect for those people who should have gotten it but didn't,” he said.

Four years later, the Medal would bring Charette another extraordinary responsibility, one that had nothing to do with saving lives—and everything to do with honoring the dead.

Choosing the Unknown

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was established at Arlington National Cemetery in 1921, when an unidentified American service member killed during World War I was laid to rest on November 11—then known as Armistice Day. The Tomb offered the nation a place to honor one unidentified American on behalf of countless others who gave their lives for their country—some whose names would never be known. 

Following World War II and the Korean War, plans were made to honor Unknowns from those conflicts as well. In May 1958, the selection process brought two unidentified World War II servicemen—one representing the European theater and one the Pacific—to the USS Canberra.

To ensure complete anonymity, separate groups of sailors repeatedly rearranged the caskets. Neither group knew what the other had done, making it impossible to determine which casket represented which theater.

Charette, then the Navy's only active-duty Medal of Honor Recipient, was asked to help in the selection process. 

“I knew I was going to make a selection,” Charette later explained. “What I did not know was that this was the final selection.”

Standing before the two World War II caskets on May 26, Charette had no information to guide him.

“I will tell you I chose the one on the right,” he recalled. “I just went to it, no sign, no system. I just picked the one on the right.” 

The remaining World War II Unknown received a solemn burial at sea. The casket Charette selected traveled to Washington, DC, alongside the Korean War Unknown.

Both lay in state at the US Capitol before being interred at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day, May 30, 1958. President Eisenhower attended the ceremony and presented each Unknown with the Medal of Honor.

A Lifetime of Service

After receiving the Medal of Honor, Charette became an instructor at the Naval Hospital Corps School in Great Lakes, Illinois, helping prepare a new generation of corpsmen for service. There, he met Louise, a Navy WAVE who would become his wife. Together, they raised five children.

Charette later qualified for submarine duty, serving aboard the USS Quillback before joining the USS Triton in 1960. He was among the early Navy corpsmen assigned to nuclear-powered submarines, where he served as the crew's medical professional.

He continued rising through the enlisted ranks, retiring in 1977 as a master chief hospital corpsman after more than 26 years of Navy service. Even in retirement, Charette remained connected to the men he had served beside in Korea.

He spoke to veterans' groups and others about the war, although he resisted making his Medal of Honor the center of those conversations. In a 2011 interview, nearly six decades after the battle for Outpost Vegas, Charette was still uncomfortable with the recognition.

"I never thought I earned the medal. I still to this day believe that. You do a job, and that's what you did," Charette said. "A good friend of mine was killed on the hill (Vegas). He deserved (to receive a Medal of Honor).”

William Charette died on March 18, 2012, at age 79.

He had spent much of his life caring for others, serving alongside them, and honoring their sacrifices. And perhaps that is what makes his role aboard the USS Canberra so fitting. He never knew the name of the American he selected for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

But he knew what it meant to remember those who didn't come home.