President Lyndon B. Johnson
Even as the nation was in turmoil over the Vietnam War, Johnson remained convinced that the stability of Southeast Asia and the rest of the world depended on U.S. involvement. For his leadership, he received the Legion's Distinguished Service Medal in 1968.
"We honor our president on this occasion for the courage, for the compassion, and for the diligent and sensitive manner in which he handles the powers of this great office," National Commander William Galbraith said. He shall be remembered by those who have borne the brunt of the nation's wars as the president and fellow veteran who really cared and acted fully in their behalf. He is the first president to send comprehensive messages to Congress dealing solely with veterans affairs."
Johnson spoke of the nation's continuing efforts to promote peace in the world: "When the first American soldiers went into South Vietnam in the early 1960s, it was because this nation saw that if the communist aggression there succeeded, the entire region of Southeast Asia would be in mortal danger, and the threat of world war would be more ominous."
He also recognized families who had lost loved ones in war, saying a president "must think not only in terms of those who have fallen. He must think in terms of the casualties that might have been - or the dead who might be."
Johnson had little time to think about the responsibilities that he immediately inherited upon Kennedy's assassination in 1963. In addition to a raging war in Southeast Asia, he became commander in chief at a time of racial unrest and rioting.
Elected in his own right in 1964, Johnson supported efforts to improve civil rights and to fight against poverty and disease. He advocated and signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Under the weight of the times and an unpopular war, he chose not to seek re-election in 1968.
A native Texan, Johnson was elected to the U.S. House in 1937. He was elected to the Senate in 1949, and to the vice presidency in 1961. After leaving the White House in 1969, Johnson retired to his Texas ranch. He died in 1973 at 64, just two days after the second inauguration of President Nixon.
Johnson served in the Navy during World War II. He appointed Thurgood Marshall as the first black Supreme Court justice. The Johnson Space Center in Houston is named for him.
For more on Johnson, click here (http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/lyndonbjohnson).