If one carefully reads the accounts of Basilone's death on the invasion day....(noting at least one officer recommending a second Medal of Honor by the way).....it is a mystery that a second Medal of Honor was not awarded. With troops pinned down...at a stage where a wipe out might have taken place resulting in a magnitude of greater casulaties.....where the few invaluable landed tanks could have been lost....which would further increase the likelihood of such losses....with a lethal key machne gun pill box destroyed by Basilone's actions (as a sidlight to his main funcions that morning).... exposing himself continuously to lethal fire.....then litteraly shuttling back and forth, up and down the beach organizing the offensive formation of the landing forces.....and still at every point Basilone was in the open.....under fire that kept most every "reasonable" soldier pinned to the beach. A second Medal of Honor should have been. This man knew his chances were nil....yet continued to the end. He had been there before and miracuously survived at Guadalcanal.....he saw 99 percent of soldiers die while exposed to such prolonged fire. And still he persisted. He must be one of an incredibly small number of soldiers who gave all twice in a life. RAH