PRESIDENT DONALD J TRUMP THE MEDAL
Former US President Harry S Truman
said he would rather have the Medal
of Honor than be president of the
United States. No wonder. The Medal
of Honor (MOH) is the most prestigious
and highest ranked US military award
bestowed for bravery on the battlefield.
It is also the hardest to earn. There have
been only 3,525 MOHs awarded since
its establishment. Sadly, 624 of them
have been awarded posthumously. The
number of awards pales in comparison to
the plethora of stories that compose the
medal’s glorious history.
The Medal of Honor dates to 1861.
The Army and Navy needed a medal
for bravery for US Warfighters during
the American Civil War. Traditionally,
awards for battlefield bravery had never
been a priority for the either service.
The few available prior to the Civil War
were temporary in nature and not always
associated with honor or bravery.
UNITED STATES
ARMY
US Army Photo by Sergeant Kevin Roy.
SERGEANT
MATTHEW O WILLIAMS
Sergeant Matthew O Williams
distinguished himself by acts of gallantry
and intrepidity above and beyond the
call of duty on 6 April 2008, while serving
as a Weapons Sergeant, Special Forces
Operational Detachment Alpha 3336,
Special Operations Task Force-33, in
support of OPERATION ENDURING
FREEDOM. Sergeant Williams was
part of an assault element inserted by
helicopter into a location in Afghanistan.
As the assault element was moving up
a mountain toward its objective, it was
engaged by intense enemy machine gun,
sniper, and rocket-propelled grenade fire.
The lead portion of the assault element,
which included the ground commander,
sustained several casualties, and became
pinned down on the sheer mountainside.
Sergeant Williams, upon hearing that the
lead element had sustained casualties
and was in danger of being overrun,
braved intense enemy fire to lead a
counterattack across a valley of icecovered
boulders and a fast-moving,
ice cold, and waist-deep river. Under
withering fire, Sergeant Williams and
his local national commandos fought
up the terraced mountainside to the
besieged element. Arriving at the lead
element’s position, Sergeant Williams
arrayed his Afghan commandos to
provide suppressive fire, which kept the
insurgent fighters from overrunning the
position. When the Team Sergeant was
wounded, Sergeant Williams braved
enemy fire once again to provide buddyaid
and to move the Team Sergeant down
the sheer mountainside to the casualty
collection point. Sergeant Williams then
fought and climbed his way back up the
mountainside to help defend the lead
President Donald J Trump presents the
Medal of Honor to US Army Master Sergeant
Matthew O Williams during a ceremony at
the White House in Washington, DC,
30 October 2019. Photo Credit:
Sergeant Keisha Brown.
I WILL ALWAYS PLACE
THE MISSION FIRST
I WILL NEVER
ACCEPT DEFEAT
I WILL NEAVER QUIT
I WILL NEVER LEAVE
A FALLEN COMRADE
128 The TRUMP RALLY Publication