Medal of Honor is the highest award for courage given by the United States military. The president of the United States awards the Medal of Honor in the name of Congress . It is sometimes incorrectly called the “Congressional” Medal of Honor.
The Medal of Honor was created in 1861 during the American Civil War . Since then, about 3,500 of the medals have been awarded. About half of them were awarded during the Civil War. There are fewer than 100 living recipients of the Medal of Honor. Only one woman has received the Medal of Honor. She was Mary Walker , a surgeon for the Union forces during the Civil War.
To receive a Medal of Honor today, a person must be in the military and must be in combat with an enemy force. According to the law that governs the medal, the person must have “distinguished himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.” Many of the medals are awarded after death to people who died performing heroic deeds.
Since the 1990’s, the U.S. government has reviewed cases of veterans whose services may have been overlooked due to prejudice. In 2014, for example, at the conclusion of one such review, President Barack Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to 24 veterans who were members of a minority group . Only three of these veterans were alive to receive the award.
Those awarded a Medal of Honor receive extra pay as well as a larger pension upon retirement . Their children, if they meet certain qualifications, gain automatic acceptance to U.S. military academies. It is also a tradition in the military that everyone—no matter what rank— salutes a Medal of Honor winner. Normally, military members only salute someone of higher rank. It is a serious federal crime to falsely claim receiving a Medal of Honor in order to receive a material benefit.
