Local soldier receives Medal of Honor 42 years after dying, By Tracie
Mauriello / Post-Gazette Washington Bureau 

"It's the rarest and most prestigious military honor, made rarer still
by a 42-year delay attributed to lost paperwork. But on Wednesday, Army
Spc. Leslie H. Sabo Jr. finally was recognized for an act of wartime
heroism that took his life at age 22 as he saved comrades when his
platoon was ambushed in Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

"Along with Les, seven other soldiers gave their lives that day,"
President Barack Obama said as he presented the Medal of Honor to Sabo's
widow, Rose Mary Sabo-Brown. "And those who came home took on one last
mission -- and that was to make sure America would honor their fallen
brothers. They had no idea how hard it would be or how long it would
take."

Bravo Company comrade George Koziol, who since died of cancer, nominated
Sabo, of Ellwood City, for a Medal of Honor not long after that
harrowing day, but the paperwork was lost until 1999. That's when
another veteran, Alton "Tony" Mabb, came across it while doing research
in the National Archives in College Park, Md. He was looking for story
ideas for his column in Screaming Eagle magazine, the official
publication of the 171st Airborne Division, and asked to see records of
Medal of Honor recipients. "They came out with this box and there was
quite a bit of material -- 50 or 100 pages -- on Leslie Sabo" including
witnesses' accounts of the May 1970 ambush that killed eight and wounded
28, Mr. Mabb recalled. Next, he checked Sabo's military records to see
if the medal ever was awarded, but the highest honor listed was a bronze
star.

That's when he took on Sabo's case as a personal project ..."

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