Courtesy Catholic Diocese of Wichita

Father Emil Kapaun, a pipe-smoking Army chaplain who later saved men in battle and in captivity.

In a moment laced with modern irony and timeless glory, President Barack Obama awarded Thursday the Medal of Honor — the nation’s highest military decoration — to an Army chaplain and sainthood candidate who died 62 years ago in a North Korean prison camp.

Father Emil Kapaun, once a Kansas farm boy, has been hailed for decades by fellow POWs as a rousing, one-man resistance front, rallying starving inmates with clean water and stolen food while enraging his captors by openly mocking their pro-communist speeches. But days before the Catholic priest succumbed at age 35, ill with dysentery, pneumonia and a blood clot in his leg, he also raised his hand to bless and forgive the guards.

At the White House, Obama posthumously offered the medal, encased in glass, to Kapaun's tearful nephew, Ray, in front of several former American prisoners who suffered with the chaplain. Meanwhile, in the Asian country where the honoree once flashed his quiet bravado, North Korean forces are reportedly readying a missile for launch.

“Interesting timing, isn’t it?” said Amy Pavlacka, spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Wichita where the chaplain served before the Korean War. “Father Kapaun took care of every person he could. He even sat with his enemy. If, globally, we all could just take a piece of that, if all of us had learned anything from him, I don’t know that we’d be in this current situation.”

His brazen battlefield reputation — a swift departure from his gentle Kansas demeanor — was cemented in the months before Chinese forces overran U.S. soldiers and snatched survivors during the November 1950 Battle of Unsan. The chaplain had repeatedly dashed through machine gun fire to pull wounded soldiers to safety, according to witness accounts compiled by Roy Wenzl, co-author of a new book on Kapaun.

An Army captain in life, Kapaun is being touted for Catholic sainthood, an arduous process that typically takes years or even decades and ultimately requires the pope's approval. 

“This is an amazing story,” Obama said. “Father Kapaun has been called a shepherd in combat boots. His fellow prisoners, who felt his grace and his mercy, called him a saint, a blessing from God.” 

'The Good Thief'
After he and other Americans were imprisoned at a camp near the Chinese border with sub-zero temperatures looming, U.S. troops died at a rate of 20 to 40 per night due to lack of food and clean water, Wenzl said. The chaplain remolded strips of roofing tin into pots so that dirty snow could be scraped from the soil then boiled for drinking. He was dubbed “The Good Thief” after successfully pilfering provisions from the Chinese soldiers.

Courtesy Catholic Diocese of Wichita

Father Kapaun, right, helps carry a wounded soldier to safety in Korea.

Courtesy Catholic Diocese of Wichita

Father Kapaun was known as a bike lover even in the Army.

Food remained so scarce, however, some American prisoners began to swipe scraps from their fellow inmates. The priest offered a community solution through a subtle suggestion.

“Father Kapaun put his own rations on the floor and said a prayer: ‘Lord, thank you for this food that we not only can eat but that we can share.’ In his own quiet way,” Wenzl said, “that was calculated for effect.”

As were the chaplain’s antics when captors tried to use hunger, the frigid weather and torrents of spoken propaganda in an effort coerce U.S. prisoners to abandon their country and adopt communism.

Assuming de facto leadership, Kapaun urged the men to “keep eating, don’t give up,” according to Wenzl. “He told them, ‘We’re going to get out of here. The Army won’t leave us.’” Publicy, he frequently embarrassed the Chinese speakers during their orchestrated talks on communism to the POWs, which the troops had dubbed “brainwashing.”

“It wasn’t just that he was patriotic. It wasn’t that simple. He thought if the men gave up on their flag, their loyalty, their country, and to their oath as soldiers,” Wenzl said, “they would give up on life.”

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More then two years after Kapaun died in an isolated shed that the guards called a “hospital,” the Korean War ended. Both sides exchanged prisoners of war. When some of the troops emerged from that camp near China, the first story they told other Americans was an account of their POW chaplain — and how he had kindled their spirits in the dead cold of a hopeless winter.

“A group of our POWs emerged carrying a large, wooden crucifix, nearly four feet tall," Obama said. "They had spent months on it, secretly collecting firewood, carving it — the cross and the body — using radio wire for a crown of thorns. It was a tribute to their friend, their chaplain, their fellow prisoner, who had touched their souls and saved their lives.”

Related: Obama awards Medal of Honor to Afghan battle hero Clinton Romesha

Courtesy of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center

Gen. Sidney Berry offered a Christmas update to his wife from Vietnam in 1966.

Across three pages — typed on Christmas Eve 1966 from a village in South Vietnam — the soldier’s words to his wife dance seamlessly from a description of singing carols in the jungle to his latest enemy kills to, finally, a vow of eternal affection. 

“Last night we had a candle-lighting ceremony ... Gasoline drums welded together end to end with a white Noel on the side. Electric light on top covered by red cellophane ... Reindeer and Santa Claus at front. It was raining,” Army Gen. Sidney B. Berry wrote to his wife. He next reveals how he recently had perched in a helicopter door, firing his rifle at men below: “We all were shooting. And we killed several ...”

“Lovely Anne, I love thee,” Berry closed. “Perhaps the best aspect of this whole period of separation is our increased appreciation and understanding of each other. I love thee, and I will devote the rest of my life to making love to thee.” He signs off: “Thy wearied professional, Sid.”

This time of year, communication from combat lines has long provided a poignant piece of Christmas.

Today's troops, for the most part, send their holiday wishes via email or Skype video chat sessions. But life was much different before technology began shadowing  service men and women so far from home.

At the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pa., thousands of notes, authored by service members from conflicts past, are painstakingly stored in acid-free folders, tucked inside protective boxes, and categorized by family, forming numerous narrow rows flanked by shelves 10 feet high. Many of the correspondences, once jammed in attic boxes, have been donated to the archive. Museum directors retrieved several dozen Christmas missives for NBC News to review.

From the Civil War to the Vietnam War, troops ranging from privates to a general struck the same literary chords — no matter the success of their conflict, their era, or the location of their last battle. They often chronicle violence during a moment meant to celebrate peace. They typically express humor, perhaps to put families at ease. And they reveal yearnings to be back with gathered families and friends.

“A lot of people wrote letters to their mothers at Christmas. I guess it’s a time you really start to think about home, really start to think about where you come from,” said Conrad Crane, chief of historical services at the Army Heritage and Education Center.

Some of the letters offered to NBC News were were originally mailed to nieces, parents and wives. 

Courtesy of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center

John T. Cheney, an officer in the U.S. Army during the Civil War, wrote to his wife from Mississippi in 1862.

On Dec. 28, 1862, five months before the U.S. Army’s siege of Vicksburg, 1st Illinois Light Artillery Capt. John T. Cheney sat at a humid encampment, he wrote, near the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi and scribbled some lines to “My Dear Wife.” Her name was Mary. He also had two children at home at the time, including an 11-year-old son, military archives show. On now-yellowed paper in cursive style, Cheney mentioned to Mary that he was, “waiting to retreat” — revealing, however, he believed his unit “ought not to be compelled to do so.” He told her that he and his men were living off of half bread rations and three-quarter meat rations but he reassured her that he was “not yet out of medicine.” And he acknowledged that on Dec. 24 he had procured three gallons of whiskey for his men: “We had a very pleasant Christmas Eve.”

“I am quite well and could I only know that you were well at home I would be thankful,” Cheney wrote. Less than two years later, he would accompany Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s famous march on Atlanta. “I wish I could step in and stop with you all tonight ... Give my love to all of the friends and kiss the little ones for me a time or two ... Good night.”

Courtesy of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center

While training to head to combat in World War I, Adam F. Glatfelter offered some soothing words to a niece.

Not surprisingly, the intended audience of each letter, Crane said, generally shaped the tone of words from the front. The museum has “steamy” notes from husbands to wives, he said, and fatherly notes to children. 

On Dec. 26, 1917, Adam F. Glatfelter penned some thoughts to his niece, Carrie, from Camp Gordon in Atlanta. The training center was built to prepare men to head to the trenches of Europe to fight during World War I. In cursive hand, using a pencil, he told her of spending Christmas Day playing music with his military orchestra for the local bishop. He joked that his ensemble was quickly becoming “pretty popular” with folks in Atlanta. He listed his holiday meal: two turkey dinners. And he thanked her for sending a spool of thread.

“Do not worry about me,” he wrote, signing as “Uncle Frank.”

Holiday menus — and pleas not to fret — color many Christmas letters home. On Dec. 25, 1944, Navy Pfc. Clark S. Crane dashed off a one-page note to his parents in a V-mail, short for “Victory Mail.” The system offered troops templates bordered by red ink. Their words would be censored by the military — a stamp in one corner validated the content had been approved — then copied to film and printed back to paper before being placed in the U.S. mail.

Courtesy of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center

A V-Mail from Navy sailor Clark Crane, sent at Christmas 1944 to his parents.

Crane was anchored near the Philippines at the time, according to the Army Heritage and Education Center, although his letter notes he was “Somewhere at Sea.” He tells his parents how he had “just finished extending season’s greetings ... good natured but well felt” to other men on board via a Christmas poem that he authored with another sailor. He offered one line for his folks. 

“‘Shed a tear in your Christmas beer since there ain’t gonna be no egg in it this year.’ Pretty corny, eh?” Crane wrote, noting that was his third Christmas spent at war and away from his parents’ house at 285. N. Maple Ave. in Kingston, Pa.

“Lined up ... for Christmas dinner with tender turkey and cranberries on the menu,” he wrote. “All of it was very good but there was a deficit of brown skin and the savory smell of a Christmas turkey at good old 285 North Maple. Lots of Love, Clark.”

Another poem — albeit a modern, bloody take on the classic “A Visit from St. Nicholas” — formed a Christmas letter home from Douglas G. Anderson, then stationed in Korea. Neatly hand-written on green paper, the note contained no date or location. Records show he was an Army sergeant who would have been about 23 at the time.

Courtesy of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center

A Christmas poem - about a battle - penned by Douglas G. Anderson from Korea.

“Twas the night before Christmas and all through the tent was the odor of fuel oil. The stovepipe was bent. The shoe pacs were hung by the oil stove with care in hope that they’d issue each man a new pair. The weary GIs were sacked out in their beds. Visions of sugar babes danced through their heads,” Anderson wrote.

“When up on the ridge-line there arose such a clatter, a Chinese machine gun had started to chatter. I rushed to my rifle and threw back the bolt, the rest of my tent mates arose with a jolt.” Staying in rhyme, Anderson described the orders shouted by his platoon sergeant, Kelly.   " 'Get up on that on hilltop and silence that red and don’t you come back till you’re sure that he’s dead.' Then putting his thumb in front of his nose, Sergeant Kelly took leave of us shivering Joes. But we all heard him say in a voice soft and light ‘Merry Christmas to all, may you live through the night."

After the birth of the Internet and as modern service members waged war in Iraq during two conflicts and, now, in Afghanistan, the art of the Christmas letter home has largely been replaced by Skype sessions, said Col. Matt Dawson, director Army Heritage and Education Center.

In historic missives from combat zones, “people bared their souls,” Dawson said. Some of the authors couldn’t be sure that those words wouldn’t be the last their families would receive from them.

Today, such intimate moments are shared during one-one-one cyber chats that rarely, if ever, are saved — unless the troops use a new service called TroopTree.com in which they can record, upload and send personal video messages for family or friends, and do so at no cost.

In most cases, however, sweet sentiments shared during Skype sessions from war zones are simply here and gone.

“So in 20, 30 or 40 years," Dawson said, "when we’re looking for this kind of stuff from the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, it will be more difficult to find," — unless a service member takes time to mail a post card home, as Marine Sgt. Brian Snell did this month. He sent the card to his wife Liz and their two daughters. The front shows a red Christmas ornament stamped with an “Operation Enduring Freedom” logo, atop an American flag.

"Hey love, Hope you girls have a Merry Christmas and New Year. I miss you all,” Snell, 30, wrote to his family, who live in the San Diego area. This is his first deployment. He was sent to Afghanistan in autumn.

“There is something about being able to read his handwriting to make the world feel a little smaller, like he isn't on the other side of it,” Liz Snell said. “Unlike a phone call, a letter lingers. You can have a bad day, pick up the card, and he is here.”

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Why do some people reject the existence of PTSD?

The topic is touchy. Even asking the question is slammed as irresponsible.

“Why on Earth would you try to put out something that states combat PTSD isn't a true affliction? Or even try to debunk it? Or to put questions into the minds of society? In the first 155 days of 2012, we lost 154 men,” Amy Cotta, an author and the mother of a Marine wrote in an email to NBC News. Her message arrived minutes after she learned NBC News was seeking to interview a PTSD denier.

Despite exhaustive scientific studies that have explored the symptoms, causes, diagnoses, and prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder, hardcore skeptics remain.

They exist within the military, where some leaders openly call PTSD a mental weakness, according to mental health advocates. David Weidman, who did two tours in Afghanistan and was diagnosed with PTSD, said all of his senior non-commissioned officers advised him not to seek treatment, instead suggesting he “just put your head down and keep going” in order to maintain any chance at a promotion.

They exist within the veteran community. Kevin R.C. “Hognose” O’Brien, who operates a blog called “WeaponsMan” and identifies himself as “a former Special Forces weapons man,” wrote in July that PTSD was a “quack” diagnosis, “invented” to clump “any odd and many normal behaviors.” He added: “If a vet is wound up tight? PTSD! If he or she is calm? Hypercontrolling due to PTSD! Lose weight, gain weight, maintain weight, those are all PTSD markers. Get in fights? PTSD, natch. And avoid fights? Well, clearly it's .... are you starting to get the idea?” O’Brien declined to be interviewed for this story.

And they exist within medicine. In late September, Washington, D.C. psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Tarantolo authored an op-ed piece titled: “PTSD, The Grand Scapegoat.” In it, Tarantolo described PTSD as a “pseudo-diagnosis” and held that “the PTSDer gets an enormous amount of pseudo-sympathy.” On Friday, Tarantolo’s voicemail message said he was out of the country on vacation.

To Afghanistan veteran Weidman, most people who so stridently dismiss PTSD have simply failed to read the available scientific literature on the subject and are, he said, “uneducated.”

But Weidman acknowledged that different people possess varying degrees of mental “resiliency,” underscoring the slippery nature of diagnosing anxiety disorders. That means, he added, that if an entire platoon collectively endures the same moment of extreme combat violence, not every platoon member will ultimately feel the symptoms of post-traumatic stress. According to the Mayo Clinic, those signs can include “flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.”

“There are people who can experience something who have no side effects. It could be that person (who ends up being a denier),” said Weidman, a student at Penn State-Lehigh Valley. “Or it could be the person who is extremely uneducated and chauvinistic, who says a guy who gets diagnosed with PTSD ‘is not being a man.’ You’re going to have a perfect storm within the individual who’s going to be that outlier, who says: ‘It doesn’t exist.’

“Or, it could be the person who actually has post-traumatic stress, who is not seeking help, who is more living up to society’s ideal male image of being strong and being resilient,” he added. “Those people going to make even more noise.”

Mental health experts say the occasional repudiation of PTSD is merely an extension of the larger societal taint associated with anxiety or mood disorders.

Click here for more military-related coverage from NBC News.

“It comes back down to the stigma of mental illness,” said Jean Teichroew, spokeswoman for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. “Military members also are afraid to speak out because it’s seen as a weakness. The VA has programs to try to combat that, too. But when you have a sergeant who doesn’t think you should be afraid of a bomb going off near you or seeing a dead body, that’s another issue.”

Still, the rate of diagnosed PTSD cases among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is higher than the rate of cases associated with men and women who served in past conflicts. That abrupt spike has sparked an ongoing debate within American and British academia as to how common PTSD truly is among military personnel and veterans.

“The suffering of people with PTSD is very real whether we label it an ‘anxiety disorder’ or not. As for the skeptics, some of them may believe that a proportion of veterans without the disorder may report symptoms to secure service-connected disability compensation payments for PTSD,” said Harvard University psychology professor Richard J. McNally. He has penned more then 320 publications on anxiety disorders, including PTSD.

“According to (Department of Veterans Affairs) data reported late last spring, 45 percent of all veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have applied for service-connected disability compensation, and 31 percent have secured it already. This figure includes all forms of medical problems, however, not just PTSD," McNally said. "The percentage of veterans of World War II and Vietnam who obtained disability compensation is 11 percent and 16 percent, respectively.”

In 2011, the VA listed the three most common service-connected disabilities among veterans receiving federal compensation that year: tinnitus (ringing in the ears) at 10.9 percent, hearing loss at 7.5 percent, and PTSD at 5.3 percent.

Is PTSD being over-diagnosed in post-9/11 veterans?

“Yes. I think it is,” said Simon Wessely, vice dean of academic psychiatry at King’s College in London. “I think that despite the formal criteria, there is a confusion sometimes (about) the normal emotional responses to war — my father still has nightmares about his World War II service in Royal Navy and he is 87, but he doesn't have PTSD.

“I also think that, for example, depression often gets under diagnosed, and substance misuse also,” Wessely said. “Our evidence also shows, for example, that quite often the triggers for what becomes labeled as PTSD is not combat exposure but actually a reflection of problems back home. It is important that we remember that not every mental health problem in theater is PTSD."

Despite the loose diagnoses or cases of outright PTSD fraud, to those in medicine and the military (post and present) who deny PTSD altogether, Wessely offers three final words: “They are wrong.”

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