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ARLINGTON, Texas — During his whirlwind trip to Texas to rally Republican voters ahead of November’s elections, President Donald Trump on Thursday made a pit stop to honor America’s bravest warriors the day before the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The intimate gathering was held at the National Medal of Honor Museum, where Trump also met privately with the Medal of Honor recipients who were present.
Trump also signed legislation clearing the way for a new monument honoring the award’s recipients on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., before addressing roughly 100 guests, including 16 of the nation’s 65 living Medal of Honor recipients.
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“It’s very special for all of us,” Trump said. “It’s special for me to be here, and it’s an American treasure devoted to the best and bravest warriors of our country. And, frankly, it’s really the best they’ve ever produced.”
The event was a stark contrast to the tens of thousands to whom Trump had addressed about 13 hours prior at the GOP midterm convention, a half hour away in Dallas.
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Charlotte Jones, daughter of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, is the chairman of the museum’s board of directors and served as the event’s emcee. Her father beamed with pride as he sat front and center, which Trump noted from the stage.
High-ranking Republican politicians, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, were among the high-profile guests who huddled in the room for the event.
Both Jones and Troy Bertram, the CEO of the new center, stressed that the National Medal of Honor Museum (NMOH) is not just a war museum.
“We are not a military history museum,” Bertram told Fox News Digital. “We are storytelling around the humans, about their courage, their sacrifice. Who they were before what they became.”
Trump’s speech struck a tone of admiration for the men and women honored by the museum.
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“They stormed into hellfire and crushed America’s enemies,” the president said. “They had bravery like few people could even think of having. They carried the wounded out of battle and on their own backs and carried them back and forth. … They stood in the way of bullets, purposely just standing just like this and taking bullets, and it’s amazing.”
One of those warriors was Army Lt. Col. William Swenson, a man of steely resolve who serves on the museum’s board.
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His heroic 2009 actions in Afghanistan, where he fought during Operation Enduring Freedom, earned him the highest military decoration awarded by the U.S. government in 2013, presented by then-President Barack Obama.
Pinned down by the enemy during a seven-hour battle in the Ganjgal Valley of the country’s Kunar Province, Swenson saved lives by making multiple trips into active combat zones, pulling wounded soldiers to safety and loading them onto helicopters for evacuation.
“The president and our commander-in-chief has been a strong supporter of this project,” Swenson told Fox News Digital. “He continues to be a strong supporter of this project, and having him as involved as he is going to be a great contribution to get the monument done to standard, on time and to start signaling the messaging to the American people what’s important about service.”
The 47th president is working with private donors to build the new monument in Washington, D.C., near the Lincoln Memorial, in honor of recipients of the nation’s highest military award for heroism in battle. He previously signed the Hershel “Woody” Williams National Medal of Honor Monument Location Act, officially clearing the path for its construction.
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“When he died, Woody was the last surviving recipient from World War II. [He] had one of the most dangerous jobs of war, and that’s operating a flamethrower,” Trump said, speaking of the man for whom the bill was named.
“In the Battle of Iwo Jima, he carved a path to American victory — literally carved a path so soldiers could get in and win through a deadly gauntlet of enemy strongholds. And back and forth he went. He just kept going back and forth.”
Williams was one of about 300 flamethrowers in Iwo Jima, a famed and defining battle in the war’s Pacific theater. The late soldier’s family members were in the audience and were fondly acknowledged by the president.
“America will never, ever forget what they did and what they risked and how much they risked [and] what they meant to their families and what they’ve meant to our country,” Trump concluded. “I want to thank you all once again.”
Swenson described the importance of remembrance.
“What we do to ensure that we have common history, common beliefs, is we have monuments, and we have museums. We have our mythology that tells us who we are as Americans and what we will continue to be in the future,” he said. “Without this mythology, we don’t have that narrative.
The fact that the event was held the day before the 25th anniversary of 9/11 wasn’t lost on him, either.
He described the tragedy as a “seminal event” for him, which happened just as he was finishing college, that shaped his entire future. Swenson spent 22 years in the Army after the attack.
“The United States is forged in fire,” he said. “We’ve had revolutions, we’ve had civil wars, we’ve had global conflicts, we’ve had civil strife. There will always be challenges to our freedom and to our country, and it’s up to us to move forward from those events and create that more perfect union.
“That said, we must always learn from these events to help better prevent them and also to honor the sacrifice of the service members who fought in these conflicts, and also understand how we as citizens can create a better country that does not have these problems — that does not have these challenges. It’s our responsibility to future generations to prevent that.”
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