{"id":63266,"date":"2026-03-02T22:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T03:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=63266"},"modified":"2026-03-02T22:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T03:27:18","slug":"earlier-today-march-2-2026-president-trump-presented-the-medal-of-honor-to-three-u-s-army-service-members-during-a-ceremony-in-the-east-room-of-the-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/03\/02\/earlier-today-march-2-2026-president-trump-presented-the-medal-of-honor-to-three-u-s-army-service-members-during-a-ceremony-in-the-east-room-of-the-white-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Earlier today, March 2, 2026, President Trump presented the Medal of Honor to three U.S. Army service members during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Earlier today, March 2, 2026, President Trump presented the Medal of Honor<\/strong> to three U.S. Army service members during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House. The awards recognize extraordinary acts of valor across three different conflicts: World War II, the Vietnam War, and the war in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two of the medals were awarded posthumously, while one was presented to a living veteran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Recipients<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recipient<\/strong><\/td>Conflict<\/strong><\/td>Action & Legacy<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/thead>
CSM Terry P. Richardson<\/strong> (Ret.)<\/td>Vietnam War<\/td>Credited with saving the lives of 85 fellow soldiers<\/strong> during a 1968 reconnaissance mission in Loc Ninh. Despite being wounded by a sniper, he directed airstrikes for seven hours.<\/td><\/tr>
SSG Michael H. Ollis<\/strong> (Posthumous)<\/td>Afghanistan<\/td>Killed in action in 2013 while shielding a Polish Army officer from a suicide bomber during an insurgent attack on Forward Operating Base Ghazni.<\/td><\/tr>
MSG Roderick W. Edmonds<\/strong> (Posthumous)<\/td>World War II<\/td>A prisoner of war in 1945 who famously defied a Nazi commandant’s order to identify Jewish soldiers, stating “We are all Jews here,”<\/strong> saving approximately 200 lives.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Key Highlights from the Ceremony<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Terry Richardson<\/strong> was present for the ceremony and was praised by the President as a “brave man” and “central casting.”<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The families of Michael Ollis<\/strong> and Roderick Edmonds<\/strong> accepted the awards on their behalf.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The President used the occasion to touch on current military priorities, including recent preemptive actions in Iran<\/strong> (Operation Absolute Resolve) and his broader vision for national defense.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    These awards follow a historic moment just last week during the State of the Union<\/strong>, where the President also awarded the Medal of Honor to Army CW5 Eric Slover (for recent actions in Venezuela) and 100-year-old Navy Captain Royce Williams (for his 1952 dogfight against Soviet jets).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Earlier today, March 2, 2026, President Trump presented the Medal of Honor to three U.S. Army service members during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House. The… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"10719","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDNcL3NpemUwLWZ1bGwud2VicD9maXQ9NjQwJTJDMzYwJnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiRWFybGllciB0b2RheSwgTWFyY2ggMiwgMjAyNiwgUHJlc2lkZW50IFRydW1wIHByZXNlbnRlZCB0aGUgTWVkYWwgb2YgSG9ub3IgdG8gdGhyZWUgVS5TLiBBcm15IHNlcnZpY2UgbWVtYmVycyBkdXJpbmcgYSBjZXJlbW9ueSBpbiB0aGUgRWFzdCBSb29tIG9mIHRoZSBXaGl0ZSBIb3VzZSIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.A26xWG-HWR8KasTcUc5dqFhBHNjkQkE6B_-1A0hIu7QMQ"},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[10719],"tags":[13094,13893,13894,13895],"class_list":["post-63266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump","tag-13094","tag-earlier-today","tag-march-2","tag-president-trump-presented-the-medal-of-honor-to-three-u-s-army-service-members-during-a-ceremony-in-the-east-room-of-the-white-house"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63268,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63266\/revisions\/63268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}