Riley Howell awarded Citizen Honor by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society

The Congressional Medal of Honor is the United States government’s highest and most prestigious military decoration that is awarded to soldiers who have distinguished themselves through acts of valor. Starting in 2007, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society began awarding Citizen Medals of Honor to civilians who exemplified the same type of bravery that our military heroes did in battle. The Awards are one of the numerous ways the Congressional Medal of Honor Society fulfills its mission to promote the values embodied by the Medal: courage, sacrifice, integrity, commitment, patriotism, and citizenship.

A panel assembled by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society considers all nominations and selects national finalists. Then, a second panel made up exclusively of Medal of Honor Recipients—Americans whose actions have truly defined the words “courage” and “selfless service”—selects individuals and organizations from those finalists to receive the Citizen Honors Awards.

In 2020, Riley Howell was chosen as the recipient of the Single Act of Heroism Award for his actions in his classroom at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte on April 30, 2019. The award was supposed to be awarded in the Spring of 2020, but the COVID pandemic caused the cancellation of that ceremony until September 10, 2021.

On that Friday, the Howell family, along with Riley’s girlfriend, Lauren Westmoreland and her family, were in attendance at the ceremony in Boston, MA for the recognition of Riley and the other 2020 and 2021 award recipients. It was an emotional event that brought back many of the feelings the families had shared over the last two years, but it was also heartening to be able to share Riley with so many people who had never met him.

Many of the surviving Congressional Medal of Honor recipients were in attendance and recognized Riley with a standing ovation when the award was presented to Natalie and Thomas Howell. It was an honor for the families to meet many of the people who are legends in their branches of the military and who went above and beyond the call of duty to help their fellow soldiers.