“Last Man to Leave”: Pfc. Richard Eller Cowan at Krinkelter Wald

In December 1944, a twenty-two-year-old heavy machine gunner from Kansas helped hold a thin American line in the frozen woods of Belgium. At Krinkelter Wald, during the opening days of the Battle of the Bulge, Private First Class Richard Eller Cowan and his machine gun crew faced repeated German assaults—including an attack backed by a massive Royal Tiger tank—until his position became the hinge on which other men’s survival depended.In this week’s Beyond the Call: Medal of Honor Stories, we follow Cowan’s path from college student in Wichita and Oberlin to front-line gunner with the 23rd Infantry, then walk the ground of his final stand along a narrow forest firebreak where he chose to be the last man to leave. The feature looks at what his actions meant in the chaos of the Bulge and why his Medal of Honor citation still speaks powerfully to soldiers, veterans, and students of military history today.Read the full story in Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine and listen to the companion Beyond the Call podcast, developed by Trackpads.com, to spend time with this remarkable account of courage under fire.