War and Peace

Theodore Roosevelt is known as much for his cowboy-persona as he was for his policies as President.  He is the only president to receive the Medal of Honor.  During his service in the Spanish American War, then-Colonel Roosevelt commanded the volunteer “Rough Rider” cavalry regiment in battle and personally led a horseback charge at the Battle of San Juan Heights.  He was recommended for the medal for exposing himself to “withering enemy fire over open countryside” but the medal was denied, possibly for political reasons.  For more than 100 years people campaigned to have the medal awarded to Roosevelt.  In 2001, the honor was bestowed upon him by then-President Bill Clinton in a ceremony at The White House.  This “first” also made Roosevelt the only president, and the only man in history, to win both the Medal of Honor and the Nobel Peace Prize, which he won for his role in settling the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.