President Donald Trump will for the second time of his presidency award the Medal of Honor during a ceremony Monday at the White House.
Trump will present the highest military honor to Gary Michael Rose, a retired US Army captain who served as a medic in the Vietnam War. Rose is receiving the honor for “voluntarily risking his life on multiple occasions … to provide critical medical aid to his comrades, using his own body on one occasion to shield a wounded American from harm,” the White House said in a statement.
The ceremony comes as Trump remains embroiled nearly a week later in the controversy surrounding his call with the widow of a US soldier who was killed in an ambush in Niger earlier this month.
Trump has refused to shake the controversy, tweeting criticism over the weekend of the Democratic congresswoman who first publicly criticized his call with the widow and again taking to Twitter on Monday to rebut Sgt. La David Johnson’s widow’s account of the call. The President’s tweets came despite the White House’s repeated attempts to turn the page on the controversy late last week.
Monday’s solemn ceremony will give Trump an opportunity to show his respect for military veterans, hours after Johnson’s widow said she was “upset and hurt” after her conversation with Trump last week.
The spotlight in the East Room of the White House will shift to Rose, the second person to receive the Medal Honor since Trump became president. The previous honoree, James McCloughan, was also a Vietnam War medic.
“From September 11 through September 14, 1970, while his unit was engaged with a much larger force deep in enemy-controlled territory, then-Sergeant Rose repeatedly ran into the line of enemy fire to provide critical medical aid to his comrades, using his own body on one occasion to shield a wounded American from harm,” the White House said in a statement explaining his citation for “conspicuous gallantry.”
“On the final day of the mission, although wounded himself, Sergeant Rose voluntarily exposed himself to enemy fire while moving wounded personnel to the extraction point, loading them into helicopters, and helping to repel an enemy assault on the American position. As he boarded the final extraction helicopter, intense enemy fire hit the helicopter, causing it to crash shortly after takeoff. Again, ignoring his own injuries, Sergeant Rose pulled the helicopter crew and members of his unit from the burning wreckage and provided medical aid until another extraction helicopter arrived,” the White House said.