Provo man receives 3 of military's highest honors

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Myron Brown may be as quick with a quip as he was once adept at maneuvering a twin-engined bomber aircraft.

Wednesday, Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz presented the 86-year-old Provo resident with a 60-year delayed Silver Star for his actions as a B-26 bomber pilot in Korea in 1951. Of the gold-colored star attached to a red, white and blue ribbon, Brown said, “Why isn’t silver?”

At a Saratoga Springs town meeting, the retired educator and family therapist also received the Distinguished Service Cross — the second-highest military honor to only the Congressional Medal of Honor — as well as a Purple Heart.

The awards were delayed due to "misfiling," according to a letter from the U.S. Department of the Air Force.

Sharply-dressed in still-fitting dress blues heavily-laden with military awards, Brown kept up a steady stream of humor. 

He compared his military service to the 44-year-old congressman’s political service: “I think the shots he takes are worse than the ones I did.”

But Brown said he didn't mind the 60-year wait.

“Actually, it’s a lot more exciting now than it would have been in Korea," he said. “They would have just lined you up on a parade ground and pinned it on your chest.”

It was also special that around 14 family of his members could make it to the event, he added.

While Brown received the three medals for his service in the Korean War, he also flew bombers in World War II over Europe. In 1943 at age 19, he was perhaps the youngest commander of a U.S. bomber crew ever. 

And years ago he also received the Distinguished Flying Cross and 14 Air Medals.

April 20, 1951, during a night bombing attack against a heavily defended railroad yard in Pyongyang, Korea, anti-aircraft fire took out one of his B-26’s engines. Instead of prematurely dropping his bomb load and aborting his mission, Brown managed to extinguish the flames, set up single-engine operations, and still hit the “critically important target,” the Distinguished Service Cross citation reads.

Then, despite a leg wound, Brown finished the second part of the mission by firing rockets, and strafing railroad cars and ammunition stores with machine gun fire.

One of the cars Brown and his crew destroyed was the site of a meeting of high-ranking North Korean generals, who had met to plan an important counter attack that would never come, thanks to Brown’s actions, the citation says.

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