This guy was a mess attendant, or in my words a cook.
With little to no combat skills, he took it upon himself to man a machine gun. Now that does take guts. Was he a hero? Most certainly yes.
However, how many other cooks, clerks and non-combatant types took to the task of operating heavy guns against the Japs on that day? With regards to other wars, the same question applies. Should these cooks and clerks get medals, ships named after them and other awards simply because they went outside their MOS? Because they fired along side their grunt buddies, doing the same thing, the cook and clerk get recognition, the grunt just gets shot at the next time?
If you join (or drafted), you are there to fight, no matter what your MOS is.
For every combat award, there are many other warriors who did as much or more than the awardee. Acts of heroism and sacrifice may be relatively common, but they should not be considered commonplace. Recognizing valor in one man, does not disparage any other.
During WWII, it was common to pull “heroes” out for PR duty. Do you think many. Can you imagine ow hard that would have been for most?