The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy and Marine Corps Medal to Specialist First Class Charles D. Rodgers, United States Coast Guard, for heroic conduct while attached to the U.S. Coast Guard Barracks, New York, as a roving patrol checking piers of the Central Railroad when a fire broke out 21 September 1943. Discovering a mass of flames under a string of tank cars he turned in the alarm and then attempted to extinguish the blaze alone with sand and dirt. Finally, with the assistance of an engineer and brakeman, he detached a flaming tank car and drew adjoining filled cars away from the blaze.