Staff Sergeant ROBERT J. SMITH, then a PFC with the 393rd Infantry, 99th Infantry Division was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his extraordinary heroism in action against the enemy on 16 and 17 December 1944. When his platoon was pinned down by devastating fire from two hostile machine guns, Private First Class Smith crawled to the rear of one of the emplacements, hurled a grenade and stormed the position, killing the crew. He then made his way to the second emplacement where he silenced the gun with a grenade and killed the crew with his rifle. On the following day, he left the safety of his foxhole and crawled through intense fire to a point fifty yards to the rear of an enemy machine gun. Firing his rifle from an exposed position, he killed five Germans of the crew, hurled a grenade into the emplacement and followed it with a heroic bayonet charge.

Sergeant Smith joined the Legion of Valor in 1963.