President Biden on Friday awarded national medals to five Nashville police officers and seven U.S. Army veterans honoring their brave actions.
Officers who responded to a deadly school shooting in 2023 were among eight recipients of the Medal of Valor, the nation’s highest award for valor given by public safety officials. The president said he presented the award in recognition of police officers’ selfless actions in saving or protecting lives.
“They saved children. They saved people in serious distress,” Biden told reporters after an Oval Office event closed to the public. “They literally put their lives at risk. Some of them were at a point where they wondered how they could have had that courage.”
Late Friday, President Biden read the names of seven recipients of the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest decoration, and solemnly observed his final announcement as commander-in-chief.
“These are the true core heroes. “Heroes of different classes, different positions and even different generations, but they are all heroes who go above and beyond the call of duty,” he said.
Six of them were honored posthumously, with relatives receiving medals on their behalf. This included five Korean War veterans. Bruno R. Orig, Pfc. Corporal Wataru Nakamura Fred B. McGee Privates Charles R. Johnson and Richard E. Cavazos (then Lieutenant) and Vietnam War veteran Hugh R. Nelson Jr.
The crowd stood and applauded when the only living recipient, Specialist Class 4 Kenneth J. David, received his medal from Mr. Biden.
The officers who received medals of valor on Friday were part of a group that rushed to Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville, minutes after the school’s first 911 call in March 2023. Three 9-year-old students and three staff members were killed in the shooting.
Law enforcement officers, families and staff at the school praised the police department’s response, which stopped further massacres. Body camera footage shows officers quickly rushing to the school to confront the assailant, killing him about 14 minutes after the first report.
Some of the officers were assigned to a station near the school, while others happened to be in the area and responded to the call.
Speaking with reporters after the shooting, Sgt. “Our job is to run toward it,” said Jeff Mattis, one of the officers, a sentiment the White House emphasized in announcing the winners.
“We all walked over the victim,” he said, detailing what happened. “To this day, I don’t know how we did it morally, but the training began.”
The Medal of Valor is one of several national, state and local recognitions awarded to the group. Families of the surviving students also credited the men with helping their children survive.
“They deserve the world,” said Sarah Shoop Neumann, a parent of a Covenant student who has become an outspoken gun control advocate since the shooting.
Presenting the award was a source of personal pride for Mr. Biden, who as a senator co-sponsored legislation establishing the medal in 2001. He frequently presented awards while serving as Vice President under President Barack Obama.
Mr. Biden awarded two more medals of valor on Friday to Lieutenants Brendan Gaffney and John Vanderstar of the New York Fire Department for rescuing children from burning buildings in separate incidents. The final medal was awarded to Sgt. Tu Tran, a Lincoln, Nebraska, police officer who rescued a drowning woman from a car full of water in February.
Along with medals recognizing their contributions, the president on Friday congratulated recipients of the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for breakthroughs in climate science, medicine and astrophysics.
President Biden awarded the National Medal of Technology to Moderna and Pfizer for their work developing coronavirus vaccines during the pandemic, joining 23 recipients of one of the two awards. and Innovation Organization).
