My father came from an Orthodox Jewish family.
They were immigrants from the little village
of Orsha.
Lots of anti-Semitism, you had no future living there.
And they'd landed at the lower east side.
They moved into New Jersey,
and that's where their life really began.
My grandmother became pregnant there during that year.
My father was 15 pounds when he was born,
he was meant to be a big man.
He was living a life of of an American now,
and Americans played sports.
So my father excelled in six sports.
Believe it or not my father played professional baseball
when he was 15 years old. He got 50 cents a game.
And he learned boxing
and he was a long distance swimmer.
In high school, during his junior year,
he saw an ad in the paper that said,
"Would you like to be a forest ranger in the Adirondacks?"
He convinced his parents to let him go.
That's where he really learned to love the outdoors.
My father enlisted in the army in 1918.
He knew war was coming and he knew he was young
and he knew he would go, no matter what,
to pay this beautiful country back
for what they gave his family and other families like him.
His parents said he was too young.
He was 18, the age was 21.
He told his parents if they didn't let him go
he would never come home again, and he meant it.
So his father went down with him and said, "Yes, my son-"
There were no birth certificates then and he said,
"- is just 21 years old."
And the recruiter said, "Fine," that's it.
In Charlotte, Camp Greene, the initial training grounds
for the 4th Infantry Division,
he was part of the first group.
So they were not only soldiers, they were builders too.
They built hospital. They built dining room.
They built a living quarters, but they were young
and they so looked forward to going to the front.
They had no idea what was in store for them.
He was sent to the front almost immediately.
In the letters that he wrote he said
"France is a beautiful country."
And he also wrote to a fellow student at the ranger school,
and he said, "I'm sure you see what I see.
This 'going over there' is not what it's cracked up to be."
He never, ever, even then, would get into the detail
of the horrendous scenes that he would see in that army.
My grandfather did not hide his affinity
and respect and gratitude for the United States army.
He loved the army, but he never spoke of battle or war.
The particulars of his valor or the horror
that he was certain to have experienced in time of war
was not something that I knew him to have shared
with his grandchildren or even his own children
so far as I know.
It was the Second Marne, he was now a Sergeant.
The battling right near the Vesle River was horrendous.
There was gasping being dropped down from planes.
There was machine gun and cannon fire.
All of this while you were crossing holding onto a gas mask,
which was critical. Their rifles had to be kept up,
their gas masks dry. And you couldn't do that
if you couldn't swim, half the guys couldn't swim.
My father said would throw logs, trees,
anything to help his platoon cross.
They finally did cross and they came to near railroad tracks
and there was a gigantic field.
The officer in charge sent two scouts out.
They were killed immediately.
They sent three more out.
And if you could envision a wide open field,
a football field and a half, and way in the distance
he saw three men that he knew very well,
especially Jim Pritchard was his dearest friend,
he was wounded and went down.
He had to make the decision with Jim,
"Do I watch him die or do I die myself
probably going up after him?"
[Narrator] The choice for a Sergeant Shemin was clear.
He would climb up and over the trench line
and run 150 yards, the length of a football field
and a half to rescue Jim Pritchard
trapped in No Man's Land.
(man panting) (men shouting)
The sky was clear and sunny forcing Shemin to rely
on his athletic training for the speed, endurance,
and strength to dodge heavy machine gun
and rifle fire with little to no cover
from enemy cross chairs.
(guns popping) (bombs blasting)
Upon reaching Pritchard, he found his friend too wounded
to make it back to the trench line on his own.
Sergeant Shemin threw him over his shoulder
and carried Pritchard back through enemy fire to safety.
There were still two men left out in No Man's Land
so Shemin left the safety of the trench line again,
risking his life two more times
to make sure no one was left behind.
(airplane engines roaring) (bombs blasting)
After the third time, he was able to pull together
his platoon because all of the officers in charge
had been wounded or killed.
He was now in charge of the platoon.
So he evacuated the seriously wounded that he brought in
and other wounded, pulled his platoon together,
and then went into this little village, of Bazoches,
population a thousand. Hand to hand combat.
It was devastated. When you see pictures,
it was like Dresden,
there were just a wall here, a front porch here,
fighting hand to hand. And that's when he was wounded
and they found him the next day.
And they had evacuated him into the hospital
where he spent five weeks.
He was supposed to go home
because he now was deaf in that ear.
But his unit was heading toward the Meuse-Argonne.
And there he was, he joined his unit again.
This was the final situation in World War I,
The Meuse-Argonne.
He was just out of the hospital
now he goes into the worst battle of his life.
Then the 4th Division was asked
to be the army of occupation.
He had a choice, he said, "Of course I'm staying."
He stayed with the army of occupation,
played baseball with them.
They asked him, "You were just shot in the head.
Are you supposed to be playing baseball?"
He'd played football with them too.
And he said it was nothing.
And he stayed on until 1919.
[Narrator] For his actions
during the Battle of the Second Marne
William Shemin was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
Though his commanding officers and fellow service members
felt award should be raised to the Medal of Honor,
he was denied on the basis of his faith.
But Shemin was fully satisfied
with the Distinguished Service Cross
and never sought further recognition for his actions
during the Second Marne.
At the end of the war General Pershing was going to travel
in a victory tour throughout all of Europe.
They asked for a group of soldiers
who were decorated
and that were near six feet tall.
My father now had the Purple Heart.
He had the Distinguished Service cross,
our second highest.
He wanted to go with this honor guard.
It was the biggest honor ever
to accompany the commander in chief himself.
There was the doctor that came, and the doctor said,
"No Jew is going with him."
It breaks my heart,
to even say that.
That was the thing I would say in the war
that was the hardest thing ever to live with.
My father then went on to open up a nursery
and greenhouse business in the Bronx.
The actual logo was the 4th Infantry Division.
And that's where the three of us were born, in the business.
Literally we all worked there and loved it.
He loved being outside,
even in the years he could barely walk.
He always had a hoe with him
and he'd used the hoe with his cane.
He was larger than life in almost everything he did.
His whole adult life was spent helping others,
military, that needed the help.
I can tell you everything about life was like
before he saw action, but
we saw that - do not go there.
He would either change the subject
or he wouldn't say, he wouldn't become belligerent,
but he just wouldn't say. But when Jim Pritchard would come
and he would come three or four times a year
and stay with us for a few days at a time,
he was the one when I was 12 that said,
"Your father deserved the Medal of Honor,
but he didn't get it because he was a Jew."
And part of what my father installed in me
is to be proud that you are a Jew.
How dare they? I was so, even as a little kid,
I was so hurt and so angry
and I was angry at my father.
"Why isn't he angry and I'm angry?"
And that's when he told me, he said, "It's not about medals.
End of conversation, I fought from my country."
[Narrator] Sergeant Shemin was not the only Jewish soldier
who went above and beyond the call of duty
that was overlooked for the Medal of Honor.
Beginning in 2002,
Congress mandated reviews of valor awards
given to Jewish soldiers.
However, the review only went back to records
from World War II.
Shemin's daughter and Jewish veterans
lobbied to expand the review
to include records from World War I.
They finally succeeded in 2011.
The review started
and then it hits the Department of Defense,
the Department of Army,
and then it goes to the president and then it was done.
I got a call from the Pentagon and they said
"You're going to get an important call,
be at your house at nine o'clock in the morning."
Telephone rings, "This is Barack Obama."
And I said, "My God, Mr. President, I voted for you."
I couldn't think of what do you say in my kitchen
at nine o'clock in the morning when the president calls you.
He told me how honored he was
and what a long journey this has been for me
and our family too.
Everybody was in awe of the family.
There was 60 of us there.
President said,
"A platoon of Shemins are sitting out there."
It was so thrilling to be us in the White House.
The Jew that didn't deserve to be with General Pershing
is now being honored by a president.
How wonderful is that?
He would've been ramrod straight.
He'd be wearing his one suit, he only had one suit.
He'd be reliving what he did in the army
while he's standing there.
And there would be tears in his eyes
as there was with all of us.
To attend the ceremony at the White House
to honor my grandfather's valor
and achievements was an amazing experience.
To be in that historic building,
to see the paintings on the walls,
to see the staff working, was so beautiful,
to see Barack Obama award the Medal of Honor to my mother
and my Aunt Ina for my grandfather.
He was a survivor,
and a hero and a leader.
I mean, he was a larger than life figure.
And you came into this family, even as a small child
knowing that this man who sat erect
and shoulder square had been a war hero.
So it was just something that came
along with the price of admission,
that Grandpa Shemin was a hero.
My grandfather, he ran the equivalent of a football field
and a half on three occasions to rescue wounded.
Hard to imagine being able to do more
in terms of courageous action in war time.
He was a wonderful man.
He was very serious,
very goal oriented.
He was a role model and a hero.
- My father would be so shocked.
I don't think it would change anything else about him
except that, "This is the medal and
I'm so, so honored."
No greater honor anywhere.