Badasses to convene in Annapolis in Sep 2018

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More than 50 recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor — the highest honor given in the American military — will gather in the city.

It’s the first time a convention will be held around a service academy, Congressional Medal of Honor Society 2018 Convention President and CEO Bob Monahan Jr. said. A number of major events for the convention will take place at the Naval Academy, Monahan said. The society is composed of all the living recipients of the Medal of Honor, archivist Laura Jowdy said.


“To have these recipients interact with future generation of American military is a very special and unique opportunity,” Monahan said.

It’s also a first for Annapolis, a location that was approved by the society’s board in 2016.

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Organizers also plan to honor 93-year-old Thomas Hudner Jr., a Naval Academy graduate who is the last living Navy recipient of the Medal of Honor to have served during the Korean War, according to the Navy’s website.

Hudner received his medal for risking his life in an attempt to save a squadron mate whose plane was forced down behind enemy lines, according a statement about Hudner posted in the notable graduates section of the academy’s website. The man he tried to save was Ensign Jesse L. Brown, the Navy’s first African-American aviator.

“Fully aware of the extreme danger in landing on the rough mountainous terrain and the scant hope of escape or survival in subzero temperature, he put his plane down skillfully in a deliberate wheels-up landing in the presence of enemy troops,” the academy wrote.

“With his bare hands, he packed the fuselage with snow to keep the flames away from the pilot and struggled to pull him free.”

The USS Thomas Hudner, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer named for the 93-year-old veteran, was christened this April. The vessel will be anchored in the Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis during the convention

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