Medal of Honor recipients on receiving the highest award for military valor

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA) - Retired Lt. Col. William Swenson and retired Command Sgt. Maj. Matthew Williams spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation about receiving the Medal of Honor.

According to Brennan, both retired Lt. Col. Swenson and retired Command Sgt. Maj. Williams both received their medals for valor in battle during their service in Afghanistan respectively.

Brennan said Swenson received the medal back in 2013 from former President Barack Obama, who said Swenson "remind us that our country can be at its best, a nation of citizens who look out for one another, who meet our obligations to one another, not just when it's easy, but also when it's hard."

This prompted Brennan to ask Swenson if it is a burden to carry expectations like that for Veterans when they enter private life, to which he said:

"I think we have to remember that the crucible of war is unfair, and it does bring out both the worst of us and the best of us. In moments of great risk to our own lives, we do things that are inexplicable, and we see things that are almost at the level of miracles. People are coming together as a team to do things that ultimately flies in the face of good decision making, but ultimately, what they're doing is fighting on behalf of each other and on behalf of their country. And when I recognize that I received individual accolades from the president, one of the things that we have to remember specifically as Medal of Honor recipients is that we're the ambassadors to other people's stories. We're ambassadors to those whose stories were not told. We're ambassadors to those who were with us on the battlefield, Johnson, Johnson, Kenefick, Layton and Westbrook, and they didn't come home. Their stories are part of our story. We wear this medal as a representation of service, not as a representation of ourselves, and that is a weight that we as recipients of this award have to remember is our responsibility is to continue telling the stories, not just of us, but of everyone we served with and everyone who will serve."

Williams received his medal back in 2019 from President Donald Trump, who said Williams demonstrated unyielding service, unbreakable resolve and untiring devotion, leading Brennan to ask if he thought of of those words as a burden or as an assignment for the rest of his life, and Williams said:

"I think it's probably a little of both, but I'll kind of frame it a bit differently, you know, to me, it's a privilege, because not everybody gets the opportunity to put this medal on, like I mentioned earlier. Well over 50% of the medals that have been awarded have been awarded posthumously. So to be able to stand there in front of the nation, in front of your family, in front of your peers, in front of your team, and have the President of the United States of America, present an award to you that you can never feel like you actually ever earned, because it's just impossible. You know, is extremely heavy, and it is a burden at the end of the day. And you know, one of my friends and fellow recipients, you know, Kyle Carpenter says it all the time, he calls it a beautiful burden, and I agree with him to a point, but I also, I also think it's a privilege, at the end of the day. It's a privilege to be able to continue to serve, serve our country, serve our people, serve our fellow recipients, and serve the fellow service members that are out there across the globe today, you know, operating on behalf of the United States of America...on behalf of our opportunity to sit here and do this show and have this conversation, and talk about things that are heavy and burdensome in a way that doesn't seem to matter as much when you think about what they're out there doing to make sure we can still do this."

During the interview, Brennan, Swenson and Williams talked about the upcoming fifth anniversary of the end of the war in Afghanistan.

When asked how does he make sense of America's experience during the war in Afghanistan, Swenson said:

"As military service members, we were asked by our country to go serve overseas on behalf of the defense of the nation. It's as simple as that. We did our jobs. We did our jobs honorably, and we did our jobs to the measure that we left some of ours behind. There was loss of life because we believed in the mission, and ultimately, as service members, that's what we do. We serve to the best of our ability. When our nation calls us to serve."

Brennan then asked Williams if it is painful to talk about America's longest war, and he said:

"No...I think we have to talk about it, you know, we have to learn from it. You know, you can, you can love it or hate it or agree with or disagree with it, and that's all fine, and that's your prerogative. And that's part of living in a free country, you know? That's why we did what we did, so that you can disagree or like or hate or whatever it doesn't matter. You know, I think about it a little bit differently. You know, I'm not sad about it. I know what I did over there. I know what I saw people do over there. My experiences have made me grow as a husband, a father, as a man, and I think all those things are extremely important. You know, the crucible of combat, teaches you so much about yourself that you can never learn anywhere else, you know, how to deal with stress and how to move on and how to be a member of a team. All those things are important now, the war and how it ended and how maybe it took place, or the objectives that we achieved or didn't achieve are up for debate and up for discussion. And I think that's important. It's healthy. You know, I think we need to go through those things, and we need to have conversations about where we, you know, maybe we went wrong, or maybe we went right, or what we could have done differently so that- that we don't repeat, you know, the same situation over again. If we're not learning and growing as a country, then, yeah, then it's definitely not worth it. But I think that we're better than that, and I think we're going to take these opportunities and have discussion and dialogue around them, and ensure that, you know my son and, you know, everybody's sons and daughters in the future don't have to deal with something in a way that that we did, that we can have a little bit more finite objectives and finish our mission more appropriately, so that people don't have to be confused about their service. Now, to be very clear, I am not- I know what I served for. I know what I did. I know what we accomplished together as a team and as an ODA and as a Special Forces community writ large. And I'm very proud of that. I'm very proud of my service to Afghanistan. I have two young boys now, and it's something that we started to talk about, you know, with 9/11 in particular, as you mentioned earlier, and why service is important, and why I was, you know, I was fortunate. I deployed most of the time before they were born. But we now talk about those things because I think it's important, and I think that's important for the country as well."

To watch Brennan's full interview with Swenson and Williams, click here.