James A. Sudut was born on August 20, 1929 in Wausau, Wisconsin. Sudut attended junior high school and worked briefly in a quarry near Wausau before enlisting in the Army, at the age of sixteen, in 1946. After basic training, he was trained as a paratrooper with the 11th Airborne Division and was deployed to Japan as part of the occupational force in 1947. While there, Sudut attended an automotive maintenance school and was promoted to sergeant with the 711th Airborne Ordnance Maintenance Company. He returned to the United States at the end of his service in 1949, and reenlisted after a sixty day furlough. During his second enlistment, Sudut attended the military police school, and served as head of a motorcycle police escort unit for President Harry Truman when he toured Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
After the outbreak of the Korean War, Sudut was attached to Company B, 27th Infantry Regiment and sent to Korea in 1950, where he received a battlefield promotion to 1st lieutenant. On September 12, 1951, Sudut was killed in action after leading his troops on a hillside assault of a heavily fortified North Korean held hillside near Kumhwa. During the assault, Sudut single-handedly assaulted an enemy bunker, silencing it before returning to his unit to organize a main assault up the hill. Despite being wounded, Sudut led his men on a second assault of the reoccupied bunker and succeeded in securing the location after killing the last enemy soldier with his trench knife.
Sudut's body was returned to Wausau and was interred at Restlawn Memorial Park. In 1952, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in rallying his unit and securing the enemy held hillside.
