The day before Halloween 2019, President Donald Trump welcomed Master Sgt. Matthew Williams to the White House. Williams was being awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in Afghanistan on April 6, 2008.
“In the face of rocket-propelled grenade, sniper, and machine gun fire, Sergeant Williams led an Afghan Commando element across a fast-moving, ice cold, and waist-deep river to fight its way up a terraced mountain to the besieged lead element of the assault force,” the announcement from the White House read. It noted that “when his Team Sergeant was wounded by sniper fire, Sergeant Williams exposed himself to enemy fire to come to his aid and to move him down the sheer mountainside to the casualty collection point.”
Williams helped save the lives of four critically injured American soldiers.
“This afternoon,” Trump said on at the event on Oct. 30, 2019, “it’s my privilege to present our nation’s highest and most revered military distinction. It’s called the ‘Congressional Medal of Honor.’ There’s nothing like it.”
If we’re nitpicking, the award is not actually called that. It’s just called the Medal of Honor, and during his presidency, Trump had the opportunity to award it to nearly a dozen American heroes. Garlin M. Conner, who risked his own safety to direct artillery fire in World War II. Gary M. Rose, who risked his life as a combat medic in Vietnam to provide first aid to wounded soldiers. And Williams and a half-dozen others who served in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ronald J. Shurer, for example, helped stabilize five wounded soldiers in April 2008. He “began evacuating them, carrying and lowering the casualties down the mountainside, using his body to shield them from enemy fire and debris,” according to the White House statement. “After he loaded the wounded in the evacuation helicopter, he retook control of his commando squad and rejoined the fight.”
A noble act — one deserving of recognition equivalent to, say, making big contributions to Donald Trump’s political campaigns.
At an event on Thursday, Trump drew just such a comparison.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom, he said at an event at his golf club in New Jersey, is “the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version.”
“It’s actually much better,” Trump continued, “because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.” A moment later, he declared that the two awards are “rated equal.”
The comments came as Trump was recognizing Miriam Adelson, widow of Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson. In November 2018, he awarded Miriam Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. The White House announcement about that award noted Adelson’s philanthropy, particularly toward Jewish causes and “research to prevent, reduce, or eliminate disabling and life-threatening illness.”
Even at the time, though, it was clear that the Adelsons’ generosity to Republican causes and Trump specifically was what placed them on the president’s radar screen. It was later revealed that the Adelsons had contributed half a million dollars to a legal fund set up to aid Trump allies swept up in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election — a contribution made less than two months before the award ceremony.
To some extent, Trump’s diminishment of the Medal of Honor — which, again, he said there was “nothing like” in 2018 — was a function of his habit of presenting the subject at hand in hyperbolic terms. He was showering Adelson with praise and, as such, hyping the medal that he’d awarded her.
But it was also reflective of Trump’s long-standing diminishment of military service. Trump avoided the Vietnam draft with a dubious claim about bone spurs. In 1998, he told radio host Howard Stern that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases while a bachelor was his Vietnam, for which he deserved the Medal of Honor.
On the campaign trail in 2016, he insulted Sen. John S. McCain’s (R-Ariz.) Vietnam service and tenure as a prisoner of war. He insulted the parents of a service member killed in action in Iraq. As president, he reportedly declined to visit a World War II cemetery in France in part because it was filled with “losers” who had been killed in action — similar disparagement as that offered to McCain.
There’s no question that the Presidential Medal of Freedom is a significant commendation. But it is also worth comparing the achievements of those who received the award under Trump with the soldiers who were given the Medal of Honor.
As president, Trump awarded the Medal of Freedom to:
Basketball great Bob Cousy. Wrestler Dan Gable. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch. Football coach Lou Holtz. Rep. Jim Jordan. Gen. Jack Keane. Economist Art Laffer. Radio host Rush Limbaugh. Ronald Reagan adviser Edwin Meese. Rep. Devin Nunes. NFL player and judge Alan Page. Businessman Roger Penske. Golfer Gary Player. Singer Elvis Presley. Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera. Baseball great Babe Ruth. Congressman and runner Jim Ryun. Justice Antonin Scalia. Golfer Annika Sörenstam. Football great Roger Staubach. Basketball great Jerry West. Golfer Tiger Woods. Olympian and golfer Babe Didrikson Zaharias.and, of course, Adelson.
That’s more than a dozen figures from the sports world, seven from the world of conservative politics, one general, one Elvis and Penske (who, like Adelson, is a big Republican donor). Only Adelson was described as deserving the award solely because of her philanthropy; no other philanthropist was ever similarly recognized by Trump.
All of them, though, received a recognition that Trump on Thursday equated to the highest honor America can give to soldiers who risk their lives in combat. Mariano Rivera and Matthew Williams, Roger Staubach and Ronald J. Shurer, Miriam Adelson and Travis Atkins: all deserving of the same praise from the nation.
We didn’t discuss Atkins above. Here’s why he received the Medal of Honor, according to the White House:
“While serving in Iraq with Company D, 2d Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2d Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Staff Sergeant Atkins engaged in hand-to hand combat with a suspected insurgent. As he attempted to subdue the man, Staff Sergeant Atkins realized the insurgent was attempting to detonate a bomb strapped to his body. When he noticed the insurgent was about to trigger the suicide vest, Staff Sergeant Atkins tackled him, selflessly using his own body to shield his fellow soldiers from the imminent explosion. Staff Sergeant Atkins’ heroic actions, at the cost of his life, saved the lives of three of his teammates.”
Atkins is one of the recipients who, as Trump casually mentioned on Thursday, earned the medal at the cost of his life. The cost to Adelson, it seems, was pecuniary.