Book excerpt: At the age of 82, renowned illustrator and former United States Marine Corps artist-in-residence Col. Charles Waterhouse set out to paint US Marines and Navy corpsmen engaged in the acts for which they were awarded the Medal of Honor. At the time of his death, Waterhouse had completed over 332 paintings and portraits of recipients from the Civil War to Afghanistan, leaving behind as a final gift to his Corps and country the most comprehensive collection of Medal of Honor paintings ever created by a single artist. Valor in Action tells the true story of some amazing American heroes who went above and beyond the call of duty, and the tenacious artist who--armed only with a paintbrush--sought to capture their heroic actions in the moment they occurred, to his dying breath.