A.  We have set in place to honor those in the military who have died or were wounded to make this possible. Now we will honor by proxy those who were wounded.  We have eight who were able to come for this presentation, four Americans and Four Russians. They will represent the others.

R. Russia has had a civilian medal to honor those civilians who defended the motherland. It was created to honor those civilians who took up arms during World War Two. Those civilians will be so honored with that medal.

A. America has only in the last year created such a medal. In case my friend has not made it clear the Russian medal, this medal and its award will go to any civilian wounded in this process regardless of nationality.

R. I am sorry. I missed reading a line.  Two of the first three non-Russian recipients are here.  Both if them are double recipients of both the Russian and American medals. He dropped his head. At one time I considered that only Russians could have the devotion Brod Miner and Julie Secrest exhibited.  I stand humbled and corrected. They are FBI agents. 

A. From where I stand we can only be thankful for everyone who contributed. All gave some and some gave all. Our song The Battle Hymn of the Republic has a line “Let us die to make men free.” Some in recent years have changed that to “Let us live to make men free,” a call to live out courage daily. This is what this next group did.

R. Because of equipment limitations the mission specialists had to submit to several surgical procedures.  One of those is the amputation of both legs above the knees. Although a few of these were missing parts of limbs, most of the mission specialists had two good legs and underwent this procedure voluntarily. 

A. Nine of the mission specialists either lost legs or had them badly injured defending the others. There is nothing I could say that would be adequate to describe this devotion.

R. These are represented here by six of the specialists. Four are Americans, two Russians. These have been brought back to rest briefly and train others. All have advised that they wish to return to space when they are more valuable there.

A. Allow me to tell you about the two Russians. They gave limbs to be there. That would seem enough but both of them were involved in repelling attacks on the group on the ground.