President Trump awarded three soldiers with the Congressional Medal of Honor, two of whom received the award posthumously.
The living soldier, retired Command Sgt. Maj. Terry P. Richardson, who served during the Vietnam War, saved the lives of 82 men. “Terry summoned unimaginable courage, three times he exposed himself to enemy fire to rescue severely wounded comrades, and three times he dragged them back to the group,” Trump said. “Terry soon realized that the 82 remaining men had one chance of survival, that was air support.”
He charged up a hill with a radio, withstanding enemy bullets, to call in tactical strikes. A sniper bullet tore through his right leg, but he continued to push through, calling in U.S. support, the president described. “Due to Terry’s actions above and beyond the call of duty, 82 men of Alpha Company survived this battle,” Trump added. Two of the rescued men were present for the ceremony.
Another soldier, Master Sgt. Roderick W. Edmonds, who passed away in 1985, refused an order at gunpoint to expose Jewish-American soldiers. Edmonds was placed in a prisoner-of-war camp and formulated a plan with his fellow soldiers, knowing that segregating the more than 200 Jewish-American soldiers would likely lead to their death. “The next morning, all 1,200 American men fell in line, shoulder-to-shoulder,” and enraged the Nazi commandant, President Trump explained. Edmonds declared, “We are all Jews.”
With a gun placed to his head, he again refused to expose the Jewish-American soldiers warned that the commandant would be tried as a war criminal once the war ended.
The third soldier, Staff Sgt. Michael H. Ollis, was killed in Afghanistan in 2013. Ollis positioned himself between an insurgent with a suicide vest and a wounded Polish Coalition Forces Officer. “Staff Sergeant Ollis was killed just weeks before his 25th birthday, and nobody was any more brave than that,” Trump said. The Polish soldier, Lt. Karol Cierpica, was present at the ceremony and honored Ollis.
Ollis’ parents accepted the award on his behalf, while Edmonds’ son, Chris, accepted the award on his father’s behalf.
