WATCH: A new museum to preserve the memory of Medal of Honor recipients


Since the Medal of Honor was created as the nation’s highest military award for bravery in 1861, fewer than 3,600 medals have been awarded. Now, there are plans to create a museum dedicated to the men and one woman who’ve received it. James Rosen speaks with a recent recipient of the medal, whose gallantry was caught on camera.

President Obama: As the helicopter touches down by a remote village, you see out of a cloud of dust an American soldier. He’s without his helmet, standing in the open, exposing himself to enemy fire, standing watch over a severely wounded soldier.

James Rosen: In 2013, President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to army captain William Swenson for his bravery in Afghanistan, four years earlier, at the battle of Ganjgal. A 6-hour ambush near the Pakistani border that killed 12-coalition troops, wounded 18-more.

Lt. Col. William Swenson: When you’re talking about combat, you never actually end up telling the full story in one go. You are telling the story probably for the remainder of the time you’re alive. And that’s your responsibility, because the people that you served with who didn’t come back, that’s a way of keeping them alive.

James: Sergeant First-Class Kenneth Westbrook was shot in the neck that day. Captain Swenson carried Westbrook the length of two football fields, loaded him onto a medevac chopper, and, in a spontaneous display of compassion, gave his wounded comrade a kiss on the head. Westbrook made it back to American soil, but died a month later at Walter Reed.

President Obama: Will did things that nobody else would ever do. And he did it for his guys and everybody on the ground to get them out.

James: Swenson was the first army officer to receive the nation’s highest military decoration since the Vietnam War. And the first ever to have his combat heroics captured on video. Today, the Seattle native, now a lieutenant colonel, wants to ensure that the valor of all others awarded the medal, their acts of bravery performed outside camera range, will also be well-documented. The vehicle: The National Medal of Honor Museum, awaiting construction in Arlington, Texas. The $250 institution will tell the stories of the medal’s more than 35-hundred recipients, from the civil war onward.

Lt. Col. William Swenson: Telling that story, it’s complex. It’s emotional. And how do you tell it to a nation so that they can understand that what we do on behalf of them is for a cause?

James: Shaping these inspiring, often wrenching, narratives will be the museum’s executive director, Joe Daniels. Formerly president and CEO of the September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York. Daniels was at the World Trade Center that dark day, and sees parallels between the heroism displayed on 9/11 and the selflessness demonstrated by medal of honor recipients.

Joe Daniels: So the hope of this museum, and our belief, is that through this museum, people will understand those selfless things, and apply that, be inspired in their everyday lives, to do things that come at a personal cost.

James: The museum’s honorary directors are the living former presidents. Commanders-in-chief who hung the Medal of Honor around the necks of heroes. And as one of those heroes noted, making this museum a success will require the same traits as the battlefield does.

Lt. Col. Swenson: It’s not about individuals, it’s about the team. And it’s about a team working collectively on behalf of themselves, and each other, but also on behalf of our nation.

https://fullmeasure.news/news/shows/medal-of-honor-11-05-2020

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3 thoughts on “WATCH: A new museum to preserve the memory of Medal of Honor recipients”

  1. This is not a public post but an inquiry- somehow I stopped receiving the daily email updates from shayrl attkisson. I am not completely sure I didn’t somehow inadvertently cancel but I truly miss having a daily news letter that I actually trust to contain actual truth from an unbiased source . Please resubscribe me for these updates – thank you much.

      1. This is my 4th week of N O DAILY MAIL from you, Sharyl, and having re-subscribed each week.

        You need’t reply to my confirmation of Mike Coffee’s above revelation.

        -Rick

        P.S.

        Re: Mensheviks’ / Bolsheviks’ machinations

        ©1995

        THE INTERNATIONALISTS

        The term “INTERNATIONALIST” is equivalent to the terms “ONE
        WORLDER” and “GLOBALIST,” which definition is antithetical
        to the idea “NATIONALISM”–or, for example, any patriotic
        care and protection of America AS A SOVEREIGN NATION-STATE.

        INTERNATIONALISM is a political philosophy that includes the
        idea of a UNITED NATIONS OF THE WORLD, which ultimate
        governing body eventually will evolve from investing power
        in the United Nations, the WTO and other global-
        governing bodies.

        In other words, INTERNATIONALISTS have no PATRIOTIC ALLE-
        GIANCE to the United States’ sovereign interests, but are
        willing to sacrifice America’s well-being for the benefit of
        INTERNATIONALISM–for constructing ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT.

        NAFTA and GATT and the WTO are the INTERNATIONALISTS’ first-
        step efforts at sacrificing the best interests of the United
        States for constructing ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT–to bilk U.S.
        taxpayers’ federal treasury!–for propping up Third World
        economies and installing the foundation for an eventual
        GLOBAL ECONOMIC SOCIALISM.

        The greatest obstacle to GLOBALISTS’ agenda is the MAJORITY
        WHITE POPULATION in America. It is RACIAL HOMOGENEITY, or
        lack of widespread racial diversity, that can prevent any
        major step in reaching their goal.

        To every rational mind, racial and ethnic and religious
        differences cause conflicts in communities; a breaking of
        interconnections which help citizens to form “a more perfect
        Union”–for fighting the ignoble efforts of ONE WORLDERS in
        BIG GOVERNMENT, BIG BANKING and BIG BUSINESS.

        Either resist the feds’ diversity schemes or abandon any
        hope of saving America from the social and political chaos
        that such diversity engenders.

        -Rick

        News Report:

        ##########################################

        IMMIGRANTS RECRUITED BY U.S. FOR DIVERSITY

        ——————–
        St. Petersburg Times
        ——————–

        At a time of widespread public grumbling that
        immigration is out of control, the United States
        is spreading the word in more than 100 countries
        that it wants thousands of new immigrants.

        The recruitment is part of a little-known pro-
        gram in which the United States tries to drum up
        immigrants from places underrepresented in current
        migration to America.

        So in an odd human lottery, the government
        this summer will randomly pick 55,000 people from
        around the world and award them visas to move
        permanently to the United States.

        The process begins Jan. 31, when millions of
        people can take a blank piece of paper, write
        their name, date of birth and address, and send
        it to a government post-office box in Portsmouth,
        N.H.

        They pay no fee. All they need is a high
        school diploma and proof they were born in any
        but a handful of countries such as Mexico, China
        and the Philippines, which already generate the
        bulk of current immigrants.

        The visa program was created not so much to
        increase immigration as to refashion it on a prin-
        ciple American workplaces and universities are
        abuzz with: diversity.

        “This was supposed to be for countries that
        have low immigration rates,” said Suzanne Lawrence,
        a spokeswoman for the State Department, which
        conducts the program. “It’s to diversify the
        existing pool of immigrants.”

        Historically, U.S. immigration rules gave
        preference to Europeans. But that changed in
        1965 when new rules threw America’s doors open to
        people from any country.

        Today, 85 percent of immigrants come from
        Latin America and Asia. Because U.S. immigration
        policies give priority to reuniting families,
        nearly all of the 800,000 immigrants allowed in
        legally every year are sponsored by relatives.

        They hail from a small pool of countries:
        Mexico, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, the
        Dominican Republic, India, El Salvador, Britain,
        South Korea, Canada, Jamaica, Taiwan and Columbia
        –all of which are barred from the visa lottery.

        The diversity lottery was introduced in 1990
        by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts
        Democrat, who saw to it that a substantial number
        of slots were set aside for Irish applicants.
        Since last year, however, the lottery has been
        open equally to all except the 13 dominant
        countries.

        Last year’s lottery drew 6.5 million applica-
        tions, and the visas still are being processed.
        State Department officials held the drawing and
        sent notices to 110,000 people, expecting that
        about half will ultimately qualify.

        Once picked in the lottery, applicants must
        go through the same screening process as other
        legal immigrants. There will be medical tests
        to establish they are free of AIDS and tubercu-
        losis, and they must sign oaths declaring they
        are not communists or terrorists, don’t have
        criminal records and don’t practice polygamy.
        The first 55,000 people to qualify will become
        U.S. residents.

        /R

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