Walter Pruiksma poses for a portrait after receiving The Military Police Regimental Association’s Order of the Marechaussee in Silver, during an award ceremony Oct. 13, 2018, Mannasquan, New Jersey. The Order of the Marechaussee is the top honor a Military Police Soldier can receive. Pruiksma received the award for the time he served as a Military Police Soldier, assigned to D Company, 783rd MP Battalion, during World War II. Just days after the invasion of Normandy, France, Pruiksma volunteered to escort an elderly French woman to the hospital, who was injured nearly a week earlier when a German threw a grenade into her home. In the middle of the night, Pruiksma, along with a fellow MP, and the family set out on a 12-mile journey through the war-torn land to Carentan — the town with the nearest hospital. Across from the hospital was a church with two piles of dead American and German Soldiers that stood nearly five feet high. The Frenchwoman was admitted to the hospital and received help. Pruiksma calls this his Mission of Mercy, because amid the death and war, it was love and human kindness that prevailed that night. (U.S. Army Reserve Photo by Sgt. Audrey Hayes)