When 84-year-old Howard Barfoot, a Franklin County-born veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps in World War II, single-handedly killed 36 Japanese attackers, he received no medals or acclaim. But his daughter, Joy Arnold, a receptionist at Brookhaven's Simmons Eye Clinic, pulled her father's story out of the family records for Veterans Day, and she wanted his heroism to be known.

"He didn't get any kind of recognition for doing this," Arnold said. "Of course, he doesn't want any, but in my heart I needed to pay him some tribute some way, just to say, 'I love you and I appreciate you for what you did.'"

To honor her father on Veterans Day, Arnold produced a 1945 dispatch from the U.S. Marine Corps' Public Relations Section detailing her father's part in the battle for Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest and most legendary battles in American history. The short story explains how Barfoot, acting alone, killed 36 enemy soldiers throughout the night and into the following morning simply by following orders.

Barfoot, then 19, was ordered to man a machine gun post overlooking one of Iwo Jima's three airfields late one afternoon. He was instructed not to fire his machine gun unless the Japanese attacked in a banzai raid, a human wave tactic they often employed.

Barfoot's commanders said prematurely opening fire with the heavy weapon would allow the enemy to probe the defenses and scout a way to counterattack his position.

Following his orders, Barfoot left his machinegun alone, using only his rifle and sidearm to beat back multiple attempts by small teams of Japanese soldiers to overrun his position. The close range fighting went on throughout the night.

At the break of dawn, the Japanese staged a mass assault on Barfoot's position. The Marine Corps dispatch describes his fight:

"It was a signal for Barfoot to revoke the ban on use of the machine gun. He pressed the trigger and sprayed the oncoming horde. The yelling got even louder. Barfoot repeated the lethal operation until the onslaught had been repulsed.

"Later when the scene became quiet, as quiet as Iwo Jima ever got, 36 dead and several wounded was the official casualty count. All victims of Barfoot's steady aim, fire - and obedience."

As Arnold said, however, Barfoot wants no praise for his actions. When contacted at his Monterey, La., home on Veterans Day, the Lucien High School graduate talked more about his fellow Marines than himself.

"I was safe all the way around because I had so many soldiers there with me," he said. "We were up in the air, we were down on the ground, we were everywhere."

Arnold said her father's actions on Iwo Jima 64 years ago are a prime example of why Americans are a free people today.

"For everyone who fought in all the ways, we need to show them how much we appreciate it," she said. 'We take that for granted."