Joe Biden was joined by the president of South Korea to award the new administration’s first Medal of Honor to a veteran of the Korean war.
Colonel Ralph Puckett Jr received the country’s highest military honour, but the president said the 94-year-old veteran asked, “why all the fuss” when invited to the White House ceremony on Friday, “can’t they just mail it to me?”
“I was going to make a joke about the post office but decided not to do that,” Mr Biden said. “Colonel Puckett, after 70 years, rather than mail it to you I would have walked it to you. Your lifetime of service to our nation deserves a little bit of fuss.”
South Korean President Moon Jae-In said he was honoured to be the first foreign leader to attend a Medal of Honor ceremony.
“Colonel Puckett is a true hero of the Korean War,” Moon said. “Without the sacrifice of veterans including Colonel Puckett and the 8th Army Range company, freedom and democracy we enjoy today could not have blossomed in Korea.”
Mr Biden invited his South Korean counterpart to meet at the White House as the administration pivots its foreign policy focus to North Korea. The administration plans on laying out his new policy on the rogue state.
"Our goals remain the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, with a clear understanding that the efforts of past administrations have not achieved this objective," a senior administration official told CNN. “We want to engage with our South Korean friends on the way forward.”
At the Medal of Honor presentation ceremony, Moon said that peace and prosperity on the Korean peninsula were only possible because of the alliance with the United States “forged in the blood of heroes”.
“Colonel Puckett told me when he was in Korea it was totally destroyed. That was true, but from the ashes of the Korean War we rose, we came back, and that was thanks to the veterans who fought for Korea’s peace and freedom,” he said.
