President Trump will award the Medal of Honor to three American warriors on Thursday afternoon, according to a White House announcement made June 18, 2026. The recipients are retired Marine Major James Capers Jr., retired Marine Colonel John W. Ripley (posthumously), and retired Army Major Nicholas Dockery.

The ceremony is scheduled for 4 p.m. EDT at the White House.

Three Medals of Honor in a single afternoon are rare, with actions being honored spanning two wars and five decades.

The White House detailed each recipient’s valor under fire.

Capers earned the nation’s highest award for his actions from March 31 to April 3, 1967, during a patrol in Vietnam where he led a 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company hunting a North Vietnamese regimental base camp. Despite repeated contact with a numerically superior enemy, Capers pressed the mission, was severely wounded in an ambush, and then coordinated fire and movement for extraction while refusing evacuation until his team was safe.

Ripley is honored posthumously for April 2, 1972, at the Dong Ha Bridge in Vietnam. He hauled roughly 500 pounds of explosives into position under enemy fire, detonating the bridge to halt a mechanized North Vietnamese assault — one of the war’s most celebrated feats.

Dockery is recognized for October 2, 2012, in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan, where his platoon was ambushed by a large Taliban force. Dockery repeatedly risked his life to protect and evacuate wounded soldiers.

The U.S. Army profile highlights Dockery’s remarkable record: He enlisted in 2004, graduated from West Point in 2011, and became a Special Forces officer. The Army states he is the only commissioned officer to earn two Silver Stars since September 11, 2001.

These upgrades did not occur by accident. Congress passed laws earlier this year authorizing President Trump to upgrade the prior awards for all three men, waiving the usual five-year time restriction that would have blocked the upgrades and enabling Thursday’s ceremony.

Two of these recipients will stand in the White House and hear their citations read aloud, while one will be honored posthumously. For Capers and Dockery, recognition came during their lifetimes; for Ripley’s family, the award resolves a long wait with the nation’s highest honor.