WASHINGTON — Two Vietnam War soldiers — one still living, one killed in action — received the Medal of Honor in a White House ceremony on Monday, nearly 50 years after they threw themselves into harm’s way to protect their brothers in combat. President Barack Obama praised the soldiers as patriots whose sacrifices had never been fully realized by a nation divided over the legacy of the Vietnam War.
Army Command Sgt. Maj. Bennie G. Adkins survived his injuries. Army Spec. Donald P. Sloat did not. It took an act of Congress to allow each to receive the medal so many decades after the fact.
Monday’s ceremony in the East Room, roughly half a century after the war, had a markedly different feel from the traditional White House gathering of family and friends and a young man or woman recently back from battle in Iraq or Afghanistan. Obama’s tribute to the two soldiers served as a reminder of the painful history of Vietnam veterans being maligned or blamed upon returning from that unpopular war — an episode Obama has called a disgrace and a national shame.
