KANSAS — President Barack Obama awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously to Kansas priest Emil Kapaun Thursday. Father Kapaun, who hailed from tiny Pilsen in central Kansas, was a US Army Chaplain who died in a North Korean prisoner of war camp in May 1951. During the ceremony in Washington, Obama said Kapaun saved hundreds of American soldiers and prisoners during the Korean War before he died in the camp. One of those soldiers Kapaun saved, Herbert Miller, wept openly from his front row seat during the ceremony. During the war, Miller was wounded and laying in a ditch as a Chinese soldier stood over him, ready to shoot him. Kapaun pushed the soldier away and picked up and carried Miller for miles. The Wichita Catholic Archdiocese has been building a case for sainthood for Kapaun..
Updated 4/13/12 @ 7:45 am
