[ applause ] let us pray. Gods grace and mercy and protection, we commit ourselves. Inspired by the actions of Sergeant Kyle white, strengthened by divine providence, we go our way in peace. It would be good courage, we hold fast to that which is good unto no evil, no one evil for evil. Rather that we would be strengthened in the sanehearted and we support the weak. We help the wounded and honor all persons. The blessing of god be with us this day, we pray if his holy name, amen. Amen. That concludes the ceremony, but not the celebration. I hear the food here is pretty good, and the drinks are free. Who gave a big shout on that . I heard somebody. I hope all of you enjoy the hospitality of the white house. I hope we all remember once again those who are fallen. We are grateful to the families who are here, and to kyle and all who serve in Americas Armed forces, we want you to know that we will always be grateful for your Extraordinary Service to our country. Thank you very much, everybody. Have a great afternoon. [ applause ] we are in the cycle and right now at the white house president obama just presented Sergeant Kyle white with the medal of honor for gallantry. White is the seventh living recipient to be awarded the nations highest military honor for actions in iraq or afghanistan. He was part of the 14 member team of u. S. And Afghan NationalArmy Soldiers that was ambushed by the taliban in eastern afghanistan on november 9, 2007. This was white standing on the trails cliff just moments before the attack. A 20hour battle ensued. Early on white was knocked down by an rpg. When he regained consciousness, ten members of his 14 member platoon had been forced to slide down a 150 foot cliff under enemy fire. He was unable to help them, but Sergeant White saw specialist Kain Schilling bleeding from his arm. Together they found cover where white stopped the bleeding, saving schillings life. Then he saw phillip bocks wuned. He survived a hail of bullets four times using himself as a decoy in order to drag bocks to safety. Unfortunately, bocks would not survive. White then spotted his platoon leader lieutenant Matthew Ferrara lying face down and motionless. White crawled through enemy fire to reach him only to realize his leader was dead. White then returned to schillings side and radioed for help. U. S. Forces then used mortars, artillery, and air strikes to hold off the taliban. White suffered another concussion then after nightfall. He helped land the medivac and refused to leave until all were evacuated. Five soldiers and one marine were killed, but white says that day america gained six heroes. Comrades he told jim miklawieski, he will never forget. S. When you are in that situation, you have these people that you care about that, you served with like your brothers, and theyre wounded and theyre hurt, and they need your help. Youre not fwog stop at anything until you get them that help. Orrure going to die trying. You can insert yourself back into that battle. Doing that, do you see a hero . No. I dont. To me the heroes are the guys i wear on my bracelet. These are the guys that are the heros in my book. I was just somebody on the trail that day. So humble. Retired from the army in 2011 and went to the university of North Carolina at charlotte on the gi bill, and he now works as an investigate analyst. He still suffers ptsd and is working to help his fellow vets get the help that they need. Lets bring in msnbc military analyst colonel jack jacobs. The medal of honor recipient himself and iraq war veteran major john for the latests, chairman of vote vets. Org. Thank you for joining us. Colonel, i was hoping you could speak to that moment of receiving from the president the medal of honor and kyle white talks a little bit about how theres a mixture of emotions, because on the one hand, its an incredible honor, and you are standing by the president , and you get a tour of the white house. On the other hand, it was a horrible and tragic moment that brought you there to start with. Yeah. Usually people dont get awards of any kind, medal of honor or anything else, in circumstances that are just peachy. Usually things are bad and getting worse and thats when people rise to the top. We were talking about this just a few seconds ago. Think about all the people who performed valiantly and nobody saw it or people saw it and they were killed. There was nobody around to record what happened. You realize that everybody, all right sippents, will tell you the same thing that we wear the award not for ourselves, but for all those who cant. Theres a recipient from iwo jima named woody williams, a marine, who says that the medal is not his. He just holds it in trust. Thats the way all of us feel. John, you were in combat in iraq. Talk about what why some men and women are so valorous in war and override the selfpreservation instinct and fight for others survival while, you know, accepting the almost certainty of death. Well, i think he talked about it with jim. I think sometimes theres a certain overwhelming responsibility you feel for the people that you are with. Something im sort of explained to people, it took me less than 24 hours in iraq to get shot at, and, you know, my second tour there was a couple, you know, tough spots where you are getting hit with rockets real good, but your body does something and for some reason it has some ability to calm you down. Its a chemical that is induced, and i think in his situation, it was probably a combination of his friends, people he had served with, and, you know, these guys are trained to know to to do the right thing. I think what makes the story so miraculous is he was someone who was a lower enlisted member, and the things that he did in the president s citation calling in medivacs and air support, applying first aid, being an rt on the radio. He was really doing skills that were expected of a much higher noncommissioned officer, higher ranking noncommissioned officer. I think thats what is so tremendous is his ability to step up in that moment under fire and do things that werent not expected in that scenario. Can you tell us a little bit about what the process looks like for looking back into actions like this and identifying honorees for the medal of honor. These arent conditions that are easy to record what happened. How do they go back and figure out what happened in these situations . Well, any time theres an action, if one is recommended for an award, it has to go up through the chain of command, and for the medal of honor and other similar awards, it has to be thoroughly investigated and you have to get witness statements and verified and it gets investigated again and so on. Any time along the way they can eliminate it from consideration, but from time to time there are relook forwards which go back over all the way back to when the modern era of the use of the medal of honor back to 1918. Matter of fact, during the Clinton Administration it went back and looked all the way back to the civil war where the medal of honor was first devise and go over the books again to see whether or not they missed somebody who should have been awarded the medal of honor who got a lesser award or who got no award at all. Nowadays its lots easier to check than it was back in the civil war because now youve got communication is a lot better, but theyre constantly looking at the record and evaluating the circumstances. I love your point. You know, there are so many heroes that we just dont even know about, and its something that speaks vomdz. He said i knew if the roles were reverse and it was you that was sitting out there, you know your battle buddy would come and get you. I mean, that is describes exactly what so many people feel. I want to ask you, colonel jacobs, about the community. He will be number 78 of the living recipients of the medal of honor. You are a part of it as well. Talk to us about what that means. It almost sounds like a fraternity of sorts where you guys get together every once in a while. You guys are all friends. What is that like . Its kind of mindboggling because youre in the room with people who are your heroes who are haas hold names. When i was decorated, at my table the first dinner i attended was Eddie Rickenbacher and Jimmy Dolittle came and put his arm around my shoulder and explaining how would i have to behave myself for the rest of my life. Joe foss, who eventually wound up being the governor of south dakota and pappy bowington. People who were household mamz. Its aweinspiring to be among them, and you feel like youre outside looking in, but you are one of them. We talked about this earlier too. I was decorated, and there were 400 living recipients. Almost 400. Today there are 78. Were a waning asset. Its important we think its important that we get out there and talk about the kids, about service and sacrifice, patriotism. The sense of community that you must have in order to survive as an individual and as a group and the kinds of things that the kind of love that develops among comrades in the cruise bell of war is exactly that kind of love. We want kids to have in their communities. The central responsibility that we have for each other. Thats what we want kids to have in their communities, and thats the only way were all going to survive. John, that is exactly the messable. We do want to send to the younger generation. I think when americans see folks wearing the uniform, they associate all those values that the colonel just talked about with the men and women who wear that uniform. I want to go back to the point that the colonel made about when he got the medal of honor, there were 400 living medal of honor recipients, and now there are 78. Is there Something Different about the nature of the combat that we saw, that you saw in iraq and afghanistan that would lead to fewer men and women getting the medal of honor versus the nature of the combat in vietnam and world war ii . Theres two big issues here. First, ive only met in my lifetime two medal of honor winners. One is jack jacobs, and the other is bob kerry. Theyre few and far between. That was a time when more people were in service to the country and the wars were larger. We have less people serving in this wlikt. More importantly, the four who received the medal of honor in iraq, they all died. The combat in iraq is a little different than what this battle was like in afghanistan. A lot of ied, a lot of combat on the roads. There were some major battles in fallujah, but the megdz of honors are coming out of the northeastern area in afghanistan. The kunar area. Obviously, this is a battalion that had the first medal of honor, living resip yebt of iraq in afghanistan received it here. In this region in afghanistan we saw a certain type of combat that was more consistent with prior wars. A lot of small arms fire with ak47s and rpg type attacks. We didnt see that as much many n iraq. Theres also the issue of just why arent there more, and have we missed something here . Weve seen a sort of commitment from the Obama Administration to take a closer look. Most of these nominations have come in this last administration, and theyre really looking hard at did we miss something . Sergeant junta was in afghanistan the exact same time, and he received his megdz of honor years earlier. Sometimes it takes a while for the process to go through, and were always looking at did we miss something . I think, you know, obviously its important for our community and important for the medal of Honor Society to make sure we have acknowledged everyone who sacrificed. John, kyle white is also a Success Story in terms of his reintegration into Society Despite suffering from ptsd. He went to school on the gi bill. He has a good job. Down in charlotte working for a bank there. What can we take from his story to help other veterans be able to make that transition back into civilian life . Well, i think most importantly, everyone looks at him with a tremendous amount of respect. It doesnt matter your rank. It doesnt matter how old you are, young you are. Everyone who receives this medal, this honor is, you know, really looked upon with tremendous respect inside the armed forces, and his ability to come out and talk about ptsd and saying, hey, i am going through something right now, thats very important. A lot of people feel afraid to talk about it. Here you have someone who is in tremendous combat in after stab, in the 173rd airborne brigade, in one of the most decorated units of the war. For him to talk about this and reintegrate and be a Success Story, it gives others the confidence to say, maybe im not okay, and its okay to get some help. John earlier brought up something thats worth repeating and making an extrap las vegas. Kyle was 20 years old, and he was in the middle of the most difficult circumstance anybody who is not just 20 years old, but who is two or three times that age could ever think of being in, and, yet, performed not just valiantly, but in a clearheaded way, and the point here is that theres nothing Like Military Service that gives young People Authority and responsibility at an early age, and when we talk about giving jobs to veterans, when you say it sometime as if what we really need to do is give a job to veterans give jobs to veterans because they need our support and they need our charity. Nonsense. They are the best people you can find anywhere. You have a 20yearold kid that takes charge of the situation and does a fantastic job. There are lots of there are hundreds of thousands of young people who are who have that same kind of capability. Knee had authority and responsibility much greater than the people would otherwise hire them. Hiring vets is not charity. Its getting the best people you possibly can. That is such a good point. Have i two brothers that are just embarking on this junior where iy, and it scares me to death when they have to transition back home because there are so many challenges, and it leads me to the whole conversation about the accusations against the v. A. Colonel, i would love your thoughts about that before we let you go. I mean, there are reports that 40 people lost their lives, that people were just put on the waiting list. We know that it is underfunded and we know were not pouring in enough resources to helping our brave men and women when they get home. Did this surprise you . No, because i think that the v. A. , as hard as is works to do what its supposed to do, is just not qualified or structured in order to do what we need to have it do, and thats to provide timely first class medical care. The people who served us, if i want to go to the doctor, i call up the doctor and go to the doctor. The doctor treats me and sends a note to the government, the government sends them a check. I think the v. A. Medical establishment has outlived its usefulness. I think we would be much better off if we shut it up the way medicare is set up. The government owes a response the people of the United States owes a responsibilities to people who serve in uniform and fought and defended this country to give them the best medical care they possibly can. It doesnt have to be done through the cumbersome bureaucratic organization, which is uniquely disqualified. Their hearts where in the right place. I know the general very well. Ive known him for 40 years. He is doing a fantastic job actually improving the situation. You think its bad now. Take a look at the way it was two years ago. It was much, much worse. Does he need to resign . I think he will not resign unless the president asks him to. The problem is not rick. The problem is the v. A. It is not this is not the way in which we should deliver medical care to our men and women who served us in uniform . John, do you agree with that assessment . Well, i think what i do agree with is that general should not resign right now. He is someone who has tried to bring change into the organization. Is he cracking down on these waiting lists and these wait times and i think, you know, theres accusations of book cooking. Our organization, our members obviously support the thorough investigatings. We want to see how he testifies in front of congress, but if theres nothing that links him to what these accusations are, theres no reason he should resign. I view i have served under general. He was the chief of staff of the army when i was in dive duty. He is an honorable man with tremendous integrity. Efforts right about the iraq wash. I trust hi judgment. Well see how this investigation comes out, but theres obviously problems there, but its what he inherited. He has taken a terrible situation and he has improved it. Its not where it needs to be. Absolutely. Ill tell you one other thing he has done, by the way, and which caused one of the problems in the first place is his heart was in the right place. He said when he first took over, anybody with pts or anybody who has been affected by agent orange, were going to treat you, and then you had an enormous number of people signing up. Didnt prepare his organization for the administrative and logistical load, but has greatly improved it since then. He has done a masterful job. We can discuss at another time whether another bureaucracy is the right way to go . Theres no doubt about the fact that our men and women who have served us need the best possible care we can give them. Everybody can certainly agree with that. Colonel jack jacobs and john, so great having you both here. Thank you for bringing your perspective. 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