Retired Marine Corps Major James Capers Jr. is scheduled to receive the Medal of Honor on Thursday at the White House, where the ceremony is set for 4:00 p.m. in the East Room. For the 88-year-old Vietnam veteran, the moment brings formal recognition to a wartime record built over a 23-year Marine Corps career.
Capers is credited with saving the lives of the Marines under his command during a brutal 1967 battle at Phu Loc, even after he suffered multiple gunshot wounds. That battlefield record already earned him three Purple Hearts, the Silver Star and two Bronze Stars, but the Medal of Honor required one more step before it could be awarded.
Congress passed legislation authorizing Capers to receive the medal earlier this month, and President Donald Trump signed it into law. The ceremony is now moving ahead under that authority, turning a long-pursued recognition into a White House event that had been years in the making.
The timing also reflects how unusual the award path was. Capers had been honored before for his service, but the Medal of Honor could not be presented until Congress cleared the way and the legislation was signed. That is what makes Thursday different: not just the ceremony itself, but the fact that the legal barrier to the award has now been removed.
WITN previously reported last June on efforts to award Capers the medal, underscoring how long the push for recognition had been underway. By Thursday afternoon, the question will not be whether he belongs among the nation’s most decorated Marines, but how the White House will mark a career defined by survival, sacrifice and the men he saved in Vietnam.
