I wear that medal for the guys who served with me. I think most of the guys feel that way. We're really a caretaker of the medal, for those who served with us. Because if it wasn't for the guy on your left and the guy on your right, we wouldn't be here now.

I don't consider the Medal my personal property. As a recipient, I feel I am wearing it to represent all the men and women who have served over the years with the same dedication and courage. Having said that, it did make me very awre of my responsibilities as a recipient, talking to kids, trying to instill the values of service, courage, honor, and duty, so it's been a very good part of my life. Personally and professionally it added a dimension. I certainly don't dwell on events of thirty-one years ago. That was thirty minutes out of my life and it came and went and life goes on. I've led a wonderful life since then.

I didn't feel like I was a hero when they presented me the medal. I didn't go to Vietnam for any other reason than it was my duty. I went over there, and I was there a relatively brief time. I didn't come back feeling that I was a hero. I don't today. I did my three years in the Navy, which was enormously beneficial to me. I loved the Navy, I loved SEAL Team One, but I came back, hung up my uniform, put on my civilian clothes, and became a civilian again. And I received the Medal for people who got nothing. I don't say that with any false modesty. I say that genuinely and sincerely believing the action warranted no recognition beyond, you know, it's just anither guy going over and doing what he's told to do.

Six fellow soldiers also received the Medal of Honor with me on that warm, clear day in June, 1971. However, only one man stood beside me. Tragically, the other five were awarded posthumously. Such sorrow reflects the magnitude of the actions of those individuals who are considered for the CMH. A female lieutenant colonel once asked me if I knew why they gave me the medal. She asked the question in such a way that I took it as meaning she knew the reason- did I? Her question pissed me off. I thought, what the hell do you know? How could you, who have never seen combat, possibly know? I was preparing to give it to her with both barrels at the conclusion of her comment.
However, she said something profound that hit the nail right square on the head. She said, "They gave you the medal because they realize that something has happened to you that they can't understand."
You were absolutely right, ma'am. My apologies.

The Medal of Honor means a lot to me, but every time I put it on, I think about other Marines who deserve the award and didn't get it. I didn't do anything that somebody else in my position wouldn't have done.

Over the years I've met many people who were heroes, and the interesting thing I've found about every single one of them, bar one, was that they did not think of themselves as heroes. They would say things like, "I couldn't leave my buddy out there. I couldn't do that." Or, someone would say, "Those bastards were shooting at us, and I was going to shoot back before one of my men got hurt." Or, "Shucks, sir, it was my duty." They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, valor is also in the eye of the beholder. Not one of the people who hold the Medal of Honor said at the time he took action, "Well, I think I'm getting ready to carry out a heroic act." Absolutely not.
In the minds of every single one of them at the time was something like, "Gosh, I've got to do it, because it's my duty to my country." Not even that. Rather, "It's my duty to my outfit." And not even that. "It's my duty to my buddy on my right, or my buddy on my left. That's what it was all about, as the stories in this volume will show. That's truly what it was all about.
And somebody else- the recipients probably don't even know to this day who- saw them do it. And said, "There's a hero." And truly the recipients of this great award, I am sure, even to this day would say, "Gosh, it was just my duty. It was just my job. It was just my buddy It was just my outfit. I had to do it." And that's what makes them heroes in my mind. The men who tell their stories in this book- indeed all the recipients of the Medal of Honor- embody the sense of duty in its deepest form. We thank them for doing their duty in serving their country.

The president clasps the medal around my neck, and I can feel the weight of it now. We embrace for a moment- the president and me. Blinking back tears, I turn to face the audience and applause fills the room. But I know it's not for me alone. I know I am part of something bigger, something vast and still incomprehensible. I look at my mom and dad. I look at Brennan's parents, and I look at Mendoza's. And I try to communicate to Brennan and Mendoza wordlessly: This is for you... and for everyone who has fought and died. For everyone who has made the ultimate sacrifice. I am not a hero. I am just a soldier.

[Regarding other Medal of Honor recipients] I've never worked at a job to make money. I think most of them try to live up to the Medal and protect and not disgrace it. I have not met any that I would say did not deserve it. And they're a hell of a gang of people. You got every conceivable race, religion. What they have in common is courage, or the absence of fear in a critical situation. It's having courage when it counts.

I’m proud of my service, but I sure as hell didn’t do it for any medal. They don’t make me any better or less than any other guy who served. Medals never tell the whole story.

From then on, for me, it was just busy times with the Medal, but I had good teachers. A lot of the generals told me, 'Don't blow it. Watch your drinking. Don't cause any trouble because you've earned the highest medal. You're always gonna be showtime. You can't get a parking ticket.' And that's the hardest part, you can't... [live it up] like the old college days. But you've really got to watch yourself. And I think they knew that I've always been a "we" man, us." I don't think I'll ever change. That Medal could have gone to sixty-eight other guys that day, really could. So when I wear it, I wear it for everyone who's ever served. That's the way I look at the Medal.

It would be an understatement to say that I found this news confusing. In fact, it made no sense whatsoever. Singling me out for such a superlative commendation struck me as both inappropriate and wrong. In my view, nothing that I'd done that day was any different from what my comrades had accomplished. What's more, I could easily have picked half a dozen men- especially Gallegos, Kirk, Hardt, Mace, and Griffin- who truly deserved selection because they had given their lives in an effort to save others.
But me? No way. The idea seemed to violate my sense of what was most important- and what deserved to be commemorated- about that day. Although I didn't know it at the time, it turns out that most Medal of Honor recipients feel exactly the same way. It also turns out this fact has had very little impact on the way that I feel about the honor that I was selected to receive- and everything else that would later unfold from it. They picked the wrong guy.

For the next two years, CBS's ongoing reporting and our team help keep the story in front of high-level decision-makers. As their efforts go on, they begin to get quiet, encouraging signs from the Pentagon. Then, in early 2023, more than fifty-seven years after that battle in Vietnam, I get a call at home from President Biden. He tells me I will be awarded the Medal of Honor and to prepare for a White House ceremony.
Speaking with the President prompts a wave of memories of the men and women I served with in Vietnam- from the members of the 5th Special Forces Group and other US military units to the doctors and nurses who cared for our wounded. I remain so very grateful to the support of my family and friends within the military and outside it. Their work, the White House ceremony, and many events at the Pentagon and elsewhere in America keep alive the story of A-team, A-321 at Camp Bong Son.
Most of all, I want to share the medal with my Special Forces troops- the other soldiers I worked with and fought with that day. Somehow, they need to touch that medal. It ain't all mine. It's for America, too.

I downplayed the fact that I was a Medal recipient until recently. I was too busy being a naval officer, and I certainly did not want to let having the Medal of Honor give me any special advantage when it came to accomplishing certain things, okay? I bent over backward to avoid that, so I ended up downplaying the Medal completely. But now I found that it does permit me to have doors opened here in the state of Massachusetts to help veterans, and for that reason alone I am probably more active than I used to be.

I consider this medal not as mine alone, but as an honor for the nation, for my late husband who played a vital role in the liberation struggle, and for my children who endured hardships alongside me.