2022 Citizen Soldier Award

General Ann Dunwoody became the first woman to command a battalion in the 82nd Airborne Division in 1992. She also became Fort Bragg's first female general officer in 2000 and the first woman to command the Combined Arms Support Command at Fort Lee, Virginia. In 2005, Dunwoody became the Army’s top-ranking female when she was promoted to lieutenant general as the Army’s deputy chief of staff, G-4 (logistics). In November of 2008, General Dunwoody became the first woman in military history to achieve the rank of four-star general. As commanding general of the U.S. Army Materiel Command, one of the largest commands in the Army, Ann served with distinction. Throughout her career, General Dunwoody remained an avid proponent of decreasing sexual assault within the United States Army.

Colonel Jacobs entered military service in 1966 as an ROTC second lieutenant assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division, deploying to Vietnam as a military advisor. During a mission in the Mekong Delta, his battalion came under withering enemy fire. Wounded in the head and arms, Jacobs took command of the battered unit, organizing a defense and repeatedly ran through heavy fire to rescue wounded soldiers and retrieve weapons, single-handedly dispersing enemy squads, killing at least three enemy soldiers. His gallant actions and extraordinary heroism saved the lives of one U.S. advisor and 13 allied soldiers. For his service in Vietnam, Col Jacobs would add two Silver Stars, three Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts to his list of decorations. He served on the faculties of West Point and the National War College, then returned to civilian life, launching a successful career in investment banking and continuing to serve his country as vice chairman of the Medal of Honor Foundation and on the boards of the National World War II Museum and the Code of Support Foundation.

Born in Boston on Jan. 14. 1927, Lt. Col. Woodhouse enlisted in the US Army Air Corps with about 20 of his classmates after graduating from Boston’s English High School in 1944. Woodhouse served as a member of the Tuskegee Airmen for whom he later served as a finance officer from 1946 to 1948. Woodhouse and the Tuskegee Airmen played a pivotal role in the early integration of the US Armed Forces. After the military desegregated in 1948, he continued to serve in reserve for the newly formed Air Force.

When discharged from Air Force active duty in 1949, he joined the Air Force Reserve. While a reservist, Woodhouse earned his undergraduate degree from Yale in 1952 and then went on to Boston University School of Law. He worked as a trial lawyer in private practice in Boston and as an attorney in the US State Department and for the city of Boston for more than 40 years.

His military service has earned him numerous awards, most notably the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the US Congress on individuals or institutions for distinguished achievements and contributions. He and the other Tuskegee Airmen received the medal from President George W. Bush in 2006.

Hershel “Woody” Williams is the very first posthumous Citizen Soldier Award recipient. Woody’s bravery and leadership on the battlefields of World War II as well as his tireless work on behalf of Gold Star families exemplifies how strongly he embodied the spirit and ideals of the citizen soldier tradition.

Woody graciously donated his Medal of Honor to the Pritzker Military Museum & Library in 2009. It plays an integral role in our permanent Medal of Honor gallery which explores his heroic actions during the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific Theater of WWII. We are honored to preserve his legacy and hold his Medal of Honor for all to see at the Museum & Library.

A true American hero, Woody Williams served in the Civilian Conservation Corps for a year and a half prior to enlisting with the Marine Corps in 1943, where he served for 26 years. Until recently, Williams had been active in honoring and remembering the sacrifices of Gold Star Families - the families of service members who paid the ultimate sacrifice while serving in the armed forces of the United States - through his foundation, the Woody Williams Foundation.