The line, uttered by then President Dwight D. Eisenhower as he presented former Marine Raymond “Jerry” Murphy with his Medal of Honor in 1953, is now famous in Pueblo.

“What is it, something in the water out there in Pueblo? All you guys turn out to be heroes.”

At the time, Murphy was third Medal of Honor recipient with significant ties to the city.

A decade and a half later, there would be a fourth: Drew Dix, who received the medal in 1969 for saving 14 lives during the Vietnam War.

Now there’s a fifth with Pueblo ties: former Fort Carson Staff Sgt. Clinton Romesha lived in Pueblo with his family from 2007 through 2011, when he left the Army.

Just what’s in the water in Pueblo?

Drew Dix credits not the water, but the human factor.

“It’s the people,” he said. “We’re working people. We’re raised that way. We were raised to work hard, to be considerate of other people.”

Drew Dix’s mom, Faith Dix, agrees.

“It’s the people, I think,” Faith Dix said last month as she sat at the Center for American Values, located on Pueblo’s Arkansas River Walk.

In 2010, Drew Dix, who now lives in New Mexico, cofounded the center, which celebrates American heroes and aims to inspire visitors to selfless acts large and small.

It features a gallery of more than 140 black and white portraits of Medal of Honor recipients and a quote from each.

Faith Dix gives tours at the center each Tuesday.

“The people are why we retired here,” she said. “We loved the people once they got to know them.”

Congress approves name

In 1993, Pueblo was the only city called the hometown of four living Medal of Honor recipients: Drew Dix, William Crawford, Carl Sitter and Raymond “Jerry” Murphy.

That drove Congress to designate Pueblo as the “Home of Heroes,” a theme adopted by the Pueblo City Council soon after.

More than 10 percent of Pueblo County’s residents are veterans, according to the Census Bureau, and it’s also home to many active-duty troops.

In 1995, a group of volunteers and community leaders formed the the Pueblo Home of Heroes Association with the goal of planning a memorial for the city’s four Medal of Honor recipients.

In 2000, the city played host to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s national convention.

At the convention, the association unveiled bronze statues of Dix, Crawford, Sitter and Murphy located outside of the Pueblo Convention Center at Heroes Plaza.

The Center for American Values and Heroes Plaza aren’t the city’s only tributes to veterans.

Tourism officials have established a walking tour, dubbed The Walk of Valor, that highlights seven of the city’s military-themed attractions, including the city’s Veterans’ Bridge, which was unveiled on the River Walk in 2010.

The bridge includes the names of nearly 6,000 veterans with Pueblo ties and features a kiosk with more information on many of them, as well as citations for all Medal of Honor recipients.

Living up to the name

It may be a stretch to refer to Pueblo as a breeding ground for heroes.

But the city’s down-to-earth people, coupled with its tangible enthusiasm for veterans, are an inspiring concoction, said Doyle Cooper, a Pueblo resident and retired history teacher with a passion for all things Medal of Honor.

“The people here are willing to do anything for their neighbors, for their families, for their country,” Cooper said. “You see that a lot. I have seen a lot of articles about police officers, firemen and sheriff’s deputies doing courageous things here. I think it’s something special. I don’t mean for people to think that Pueblo is the only place like this. That’s not true.

“But it’s quite an honor to be called the ‘Home of Heroes.’ I think there are a lot of people who want to live up to that.”

During his decades as a middle and high school teacher in Pueblo, Cooper involved his students in as many Medal of Honor-related activities as possible.

Pueblo’s many tributes to veterans make an impression on kids, if they’re given the chance to experience them, Cooper said.

Faith Dix agrees.

Once she witnessed a young boy who, inspired by Drew’s account of how he earned the Medal of Honor, jumped up and said, “If I was 17, I’d enlist in the Army today.”

A fifth bronze statue?

This year, Clinton Romesha will receive a personal invitation from Drew Dix to the Pueblo Home of Heroes Association’s golf tournament in May, said Paulette Stuart, the association’s secretary.

The annual tournament raises money for the upkeep of the bronze statues and funds the association’s annual scholarship contest for schoolchildren.

Dix is always in attendance, as are several other Medal of Honor recipients, Stuart said.

By the time the tournament rolls around, Romesha’s name will have been added to the comprehensive list of medal recipients on the exterior of the convention center.

Will a bronze statue of Romesha soon join the other four?

According to Stuart, probably not.

“The idea of the four is that they were our hometown boys,” Stuart said. “Romesha is not a Pueblo native. But he’d certainly be welcomed in Pueblo as part of the Medal of Honor family.”

Drew Dix said it will be interesting to see how Romesha’s association with Pueblo plays out.

It’s not uncommon for multiple cities and states with ties to a Medal of Honor recipient to lay claim on him, Dix said.

Dix, who was born in New York, raised in Pueblo, took his oath of service in Denver and has lived in Alaska, has had all four places claim him.

The same sort of thing is now happening to Romesha, he said.

“I think it would be kind of intriguing if Romesha claimed Pueblo,” he said. “That would be kind of neat. People in Pueblo want him to be from Pueblo.”

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PUEBLO’S WALK OF VALOR

1. Medal of Honor Memorial, Pueblo Convention Center, 320 Central Main St.

2. USS Pueblo Memorial, Pueblo Convention Center (front door)

3. Peter C. Lemon Rose Garden, Pueblo Convention Center (front door)

4. Veterans’ Bridge, Gateway Park at the Riverwalk

5. Zebulon Pike Plaza, Riverwalk (south end)

6. Center for American Values, 101 S. Main St.

7. Memorial Hall, 100 Central Main St.

For more information on the walk, visit www.walkofvalor.com.

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MORE INFORMATION

For more information on the Center for American Values, visit www.americanvaluescenter.org.

For more information on the Pueblo Home of Heroes Association, visit www.pueblohomeofheroes.org.

The Pueblo Medal of Honor Memorial outside the Pueblo Convention Center, 320 Central Main St. The memorial, which honors Medal of Honor recipients Drew Dix, William Crawford, Carl Sitter and Raymond “Jerry” Murphy, was unveiled in 2000 during the annual Medal of Honor Convention. Photo by