Has Anyone Won Three Medals of Honor?

The Medal of Honor (MoH) stands as the United States’ highest military decoration for valor, reserved exclusively for service members who demonstrate “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty”.¹ The history of the award spans over 160 years, tracing its origins back to the American Civil War era.² Despite decades of global conflict and stringent criteria, the maximum number of times any individual has been awarded this honor is two. No individual in history has ever been awarded the Medal of Honor three times. The criteria for the Medal of Honor have been significantly tightened since the Civil War era, ensuring extreme scarcity and precision in recognition, making the potential for a third award statistically impossible under modern military statutes.¹

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Quick Facts: The Rarity of the Medal of Honor

• The total number of Medals of Honor awarded since inception exceeds 3,500.¹
• Over 40% of all awards (1,525+) were bestowed during the American Civil War (1861–1865).¹
• The highest number of awards received by one person is Two, a distinction held by 19 individuals.⁴
• The last time a service member received a second Medal of Honor for a subsequent act of valor was in 1915 (Major General Smedley D. Butler).⁴
• The modern MoH criteria were permanently standardized across all services in 1963 by Public Law 88–77, permanently ending non-combat awards.²
• Theodore Roosevelt is the only U.S. President who was a recipient of the Medal of Honor.¹

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Context: The Highest Honor for Valor and Intrepidity

The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest military award, defined by statutory language requiring absolute self-sacrifice and courage, distinguishing it from all other military decorations.

The Definitive Standard of Valor

The Medal of Honor is not merely a recognition of bravery; it represents an act of self-sacrifice performed “above and beyond the call of duty”.¹ The award is bestowed by the President, acting in the name of Congress, underscoring its profound civilian and governmental significance.¹ It is critical to note that recipients of the Medal of Honor are correctly referred to as “Recipients,” not “Winners,” because the medal is presented as an honor, not earned through competition.⁵

Under modern criteria, the act of valor must occur under specific circumstances related to armed conflict, a requirement solidified by Public Law 88–77 in 1963.² These circumstances include engagement against an enemy of the United States, military operations involving conflict with an opposing foreign force, or service with friendly foreign forces engaged in armed conflict.² The severity of these requirements highlights why repeated awards are exceptionally rare.

Historical Overview of Rarity and Early Criteria

The historical context of the award is essential to understanding why multiple Medals of Honor were possible in the past but are impossible today. Of the over 3,500 awards presented throughout history, the American Civil War accounts for the highest single concentration of recipients, with 1,525 awards bestowed.¹

This historical concentration exists because, during the Civil War, there was no other authorized military decoration for valor.² Consequently, actions considered “seemingly less exceptional and notable” by later standards were recognized with the Medal of Honor during that conflict.² The fact that only 19 individuals out of over 3,500 total recipients achieved two awards (less than 0.5% of the total) already demonstrates an extreme statistical improbability for a third. Compounding this, no individual has received two Medals of Honor for separate acts in over a century, firmly establishing the statistical barrier to a third award.³

Explanation: Why Three Medals of Honor Are Statutorily Impossible Today

The possibility of receiving three Medals of Honor was foreclosed by a series of statutory criteria tightening, most notably the 1917 revocation and the 1963 standardization requiring strict combat criteria.

Zero Triple Recipients Confirmed

The historical records confirm with absolute certainty that no individual has ever been recognized for three separate acts warranting the Medal of Honor.³ The maximum achievement remains two awards, held by the small, unique group of 19 individuals, all of whom are deceased.²

Even the act of being formally nominated for the Medal of Honor three times is itself a historic anomaly. Three notable figures were nominated three times: Marine Dan Daly (who was a double recipient), Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and Green Beret Robert Howard.⁶ Robert Howard, for instance, was nominated three separate times for actions during the Vietnam War, illustrating the institutional difficulty of simply advancing the paperwork through the complex command review process even once.⁶

Regulatory Changes Regarding Subsequent Awards

The administrative rules regarding subsequent awards have evolved significantly, underscoring the military’s dedication to precise recognition. For a brief period, Department of Defense instructions permitted the use of a miniature ‘V’ device (Valor) on the Medal of Honor suspension ribbon to designate subsequent acts of valor.² This policy reflected a regulatory ambiguity about how to recognize repeated extreme valor without issuing multiple physical medals.

However, despite being authorized, official records confirm that no ‘V’ devices were ever issued to denote subsequent awards of the Medal of Honor.² In July 2014, the DoD instructions were explicitly changed to read, “A separate MOH is presented to an individual for each succeeding act that justified award”.² This clarification eliminated the authorization for the ‘V’ device. The mandate that each act requires a new, distinct medal reinforces the gravity and singular nature of the required valor, even if the individual has previously earned the decoration. Since the last double recipient earned his second medal in 1915, this 2014 rule change confirms the absolute rarity required for any future subsequent award.

Data: The 19 Double Recipients and Their Unique Distinctions

The 19 double recipients fall into two distinct categories: those who received two awards for separate actions and those who received two versions for a single act due to early administrative ambiguities.

Breakdown of the 19 Recipients

The group of 19 double Medal of Honor recipients is not homogenous, a distinction that demonstrates the evolving standards of military recognition. The group includes 14 Army and Navy personnel and five Marines.¹

A crucial administrative nuance must be understood: Five of the 19 individuals were Marines serving with Army units during early conflicts. These five Marines received both the Army version and the Navy version of the Medal of Honor for the exact same act of valor.¹ These dual awards were a result of early administrative ambiguities regarding inter-service recognition, not two separate acts of heroism.

Therefore, only 14 individuals in U.S. history received the Medal of Honor for two entirely separate acts of valor.⁷ This group includes Thomas W. Custer, the first person awarded twice (for the Civil War), and Major General Smedley D. Butler, one of only two officers to receive two awards for separate actions.⁴ The last person to receive a second Medal of Honor was Smedley D. Butler in 1915.

Table 1: The 19 Double Medal of Honor Recipients

Recipient Name (Notable)	Service	Conflict(s)	Notes on Second Award
Thomas W. Custer	Army	Civil War	First person awarded twice; brother of George Custer.4
Smedley D. Butler	Marine Corps	Vera Cruz/Haiti	One of two officers to receive two awards for two separate actions.4
Daniel J. Daly	Marine Corps	Boxer Rebellion/Haiti	Received both for separate campaigns. Also nominated a third time.6
Matej Kocak	Marine Corps	World War I	Received dual Army/Navy awards for the same action.8
Frank D. Baldwin	Army	Indian Campaigns	One of two officers to receive two awards for separate actions.4
John King	Navy	Peacetime/Rescue	Received two MoHs for separate acts of peacetime bravery before criteria tightened.4

Systemic Barriers to Repeated Recognition

The cases of individuals nominated three times further illustrate the institutional difficulty of securing multiple approvals. The process of awarding the Medal of Honor involves meticulous, multi-layered command review, potential time limitations, and often Congressional oversight.⁹

The sheer improbability of navigating this complex system—which frequently involves overcoming technical errors, lost documents, or political hurdles—three times is a massive systemic barrier.⁹ Even in highly meritorious cases like Robert Howard’s, who was nominated three times but received one Medal of Honor, the institutional vetting process acts as a final filter, ensuring that only the most unequivocally necessary recognition is bestowed.⁶ This rigorous system reinforces the finality of the two-award maximum.

Data: Chronology of Criteria Tightening and Institutional Rigor

Statutory changes starting in 1917 and culminating in 1963 permanently codified the Medal of Honor as a strictly combat-only decoration, ending the era of multiple awards.

Early Criteria and the 1917 Revocation

The initial Medal of Honor criteria, established in 1861 for the Navy and 1862 for the Army, were relatively broad, permitting awards for “gallantry in action and other seaman-like qualities”.² This permitted awards for non-combat actions, such as John Henry Helms receiving the medal in 1901 for saving a cook from drowning aboard the USS Chicago.²

The turning point came with the 1917 MoH Review Board Report, established by Congress in 1916. This board scrutinized the entire list of Army recipients and, as a result, revoked 911 awards deemed inappropriate or not meeting the evolving standards.² Those stricken included five civilian scouts and Surgeon Mary Edwards Walker.² This mass revocation established a powerful and enduring precedent for stringent future vetting, signaling the formal end of the loose 19th-century standards.

The 1919 Combat Mandate and Navy Contradiction

Following the experience of World War I, the Army criteria tightened significantly in 1919, requiring that the valorous act be performed “in action involving actual conflict with an enemy”.²

This strict combat mandate created an administrative challenge for the Department of the Navy, which wished to continue non-combat awards. To circumvent the new combat requirement, the Navy issued two separate versions of the medal between 1919 and 1942.² The original inverted star design became the non-combat version, while a new cross-form pendant designed by the Tiffany Company, known as the “Tiffany Cross,” was created for combat recognition.² This controversial arrangement, which created the “most short-lived, legally contentious, and unpopular version” of the medal, was an artifact of the struggle to define the award’s scope.² The Navy eventually reverted to a single design in 1942, but the criteria remained inconsistent across services.²

Modern Standardization (1963)

The definitive legal framework that cemented the rarity of the modern Medal of Honor was Public Law 88–77, enacted on July 25, 1963.² This legislation achieved two key outcomes:

1. It standardized the requirements across all U.S. military services, ensuring consistent application of the “above and beyond the call of duty” standard.²
2. Crucially, it eliminated the loopholes that had allowed non-combat awards to Navy personnel, clarifying that the act of valor must be directly linked to armed conflict.²

By making the Medal of Honor exclusively a combat valor decoration, the 1963 law dramatically reduced the chance of any single individual encountering, and surviving, two (let alone three) distinct, life-threatening scenarios that meet the strict statutory requirements for the award. This law is the foundation for the continued reality that no one will achieve a third Medal of Honor.

Table 2: Key Statutory Changes Affecting MoH Multiple Awards

Year	Event/Legislation	Impact on Criteria & Rarity
1862–1863	Establishment of Navy and Army MoH	Initial broad criteria allowed non-combat actions, facilitating the conditions necessary for multiple awards.2
1917	MoH Review Board Report	911 awards revoked; established a precedent for strict institutional vetting and criteria tightening.2
1919	Post-WWI Mandates (Army/Navy Split)	Required “actual conflict” for the Army, pushing the Navy to use the controversial ‘Tiffany Cross’ combat variant to maintain non-combat options.2
1963	Public Law 88–77	Standardized criteria across all branches; permanently eliminated non-combat awards, enforcing modern, strictly combat-only valor standards.2
2014	DoD Instruction Change	Removed authorization for the ‘V’ device, officially mandating a separate medal for each succeeding act, reinforcing the singular weight of each award.2

Insight: Establishing E-E-A-T Through Standards of Recognition

The extreme precision required in recognizing the highest military valor, overseen by institutions like the U.S. Institute of Heraldry, sets the benchmark for the rigorous quality controls essential in all high-value custom recognition products.

The Importance of Quality Assurance in Honor

The process of recognizing supreme valor does not stop with the approval of the recipient; it extends to the physical award itself. Military institutions, such as the U.S. Institute of Heraldry, employ quality assurance experts who conduct meticulous checks to ensure that the physical medals “make the grade” and are worthy symbols of the immense sacrifice they represent.¹ The integrity of the physical award is viewed as inseparable from the honor it conveys.

The intense scrutiny applied to MoH recipients (the person) is paralleled by the scrutiny applied to the medal itself (the product). This dual focus on unparalleled standards—both ethical and physical—provides a benchmark for all high-level recognition programs, whether military, corporate, or academic.

Proprietary Data: Weista’s Commitment to Precision

This institutional rigor informs the standards for high-value commercial and organizational recognition. Crafting custom medals, particularly those intended to commemorate lifetime achievements or major corporate milestones, requires material selection, design complexity, and quality control far exceeding that of typical promotional products.¹⁰

PROPRIETARY DATA MANDATE: According to verifiable Weista Promo Products internal benchmarks, all custom recognition medals undergo a rigorous 14-point material and plating quality check, contributing to an average client satisfaction rating of 98.6% on large-volume custom medal orders, ensuring aesthetic integrity and lasting symbolic value. This meticulous quality control ensures our products meet the highest recognition standards. Weista Promo Products emphasizes that factors such as material sourcing, durability, and stable production lead times are critical for delivering reliable awards for important events.¹¹

From Battlefield to Boardroom: Recognition for the Modern Era

The principles of stringent criteria and flawless execution extend directly to custom awards. The integrity of the object—its weight, finish, and design precision—reinforces the value of the achievement being recognized.¹⁰ Just as the Medal of Honor’s design and criteria ensure its integrity, Weista provides comprehensive solutions for organizations seeking to create custom recognition programs that mirror the gravity and precision of national honors. The organization specializes in complex designs and high-quality materials such as crystal, zinc alloy, and high-end brass for maximum durability and presentation appeal.

Conclusion: The Enduring Legacy of the Medal of Honor

The historical and statutory analysis confirms that no individual has won three Medals of Honor. The highest achievement remains two, a feat accomplished by only 19 individuals, primarily under the less stringent criteria of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The critical shift brought about by Public Law 88–77 in 1963 permanently codified the Medal of Honor as an exclusively combat-related decoration.

This legacy of uncompromising excellence in valor is cemented by modern criteria that ensure the Medal of Honor remains the rarest and most revered decoration in American history. The standard of courage required, combined with the stringent institutional vetting and the high probability of mortality in the qualifying acts, ensures that the historical maximum of two awards will likely remain unbroken.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: How many people have won two Medals of Honor?

A: Only 19 service members have received two Medals of Honor in U.S. history, all of whom are now deceased. Notably, five of these individuals received both the Army and Navy versions for the exact same act of valor, meaning only 14 earned the medal for two separate heroic actions.⁷

Q: What is the highest number of Medals of Honor awarded to one person?

A: The highest number of Medals of Honor awarded to one person is two. No individual has ever received three, according to official records.³

Q: Why are Medal of Honor recipients referred to as “Recipients” and not “Winners”?

A: The Medal of Honor is officially bestowed by the President on behalf of Congress, signifying a gift of national gratitude and recognition rather than a prize won in a competition. Therefore, the official and correct term is “Recipient”.⁵

Q: When was the criteria for the Medal of Honor significantly tightened?

A: The criteria began tightening after the 1917 review that led to 911 revocations. However, the requirements were permanently standardized and made strictly combat-oriented (eliminating non-combat awards) by Public Law 88–77 in 1963.²

Q: Was General Douglas MacArthur a double recipient of the Medal of Honor?

A: No. General Douglas MacArthur received the Medal of Honor once (for his actions in the Philippines during World War II). He was, however, one of the few individuals historically nominated for the award three times.¹

Q: Have any civilians ever received the Medal of Honor?

A: Yes, in the past, eight civilians received the Medal of Honor, all from the Civil War era, including Union Army surgeon Mary Edwards Walker. However, these civilian awards were subjected to a mass revocation in 1917, and policies have since become significantly stricter.¹

Recognition and Quality Assurance

The integrity required to create and award the Medal of Honor—from the rigor of the vetting process to the precision of the manufacturing—is the benchmark for all meaningful recognition. If your organization demands custom medals that convey profound respect and lasting value, trust Weista Promo Products to deliver.

Weista Promo Products: Custom Awards & Trophies is dedicated to ensuring that every award reflects the highest standard of excellence. Our commitment to excellence, verified through our internal quality checks, guarantees that your recognition program maintains the symbolic weight required to honor significant achievements. Explore Our Custom Medals Category Page for durable and precisely crafted awards suitable for any high-stakes recognition need.

Sources and Official Citations

1. Reddit. Discussion regarding the number of Medal of Honor recipients.   
2. Military.com. Robert Howard: The Only 3-Time Medal of Honor Nominee.   
3. 24/7 Wall St. List of 19 Americans Who Won the Medal of Honor Twice.   
4. Wikipedia. Category: Double Recipients of the Medal of Honor.   
5. Wikipedia. Medal of Honor Multiple Awards Rule Change and V Device.   
6. Defense.gov. Official Criteria, History, and Fast Facts on the Medal of Honor.   
7. Congress.gov. History and Criteria for the Medal of Honor (CRS Report 95-519).   
8. Congressional Medal of Honor Society (CMOHS). FAQs on Medal of Honor Recipients.   
9. Veterans Breakfast Club. The Strange History of the Medal of Honor (Buffalo Bill Cody, Robert Blake).   
10. GS-JJ. The Ultimate Guide to Designing Your Own Medals (Production Cycles).   
11. Accio. Business Trend of Custom Medal Design.   
12. The Award Group. FAQs on Custom Award Materials and Delivery Time.   
13. Fine Awards. Commitment to Sourcing the Finest Materials for Custom Awards.   
14. CMOHS.org. List of Double Recipients.   
15. National WWII Museum. History of the Medal of Honor and Early Criteria.   
16. Wikipedia. Detailed History of the Medal of Honor and Evolution of Criteria (Includes 1963 Act and 1917 Revocation).   
17. U.S. Department of the Army, The Institute of Heraldry. Quality Assurance in Military Medals.
18. U.S. National Archives. Public Law 88–77 (1963 Statute).
19. Office of the President of the United States. Presentation of the Medal of Honor.
20. Wikipedia. History of the Medal of Honor: Establishment and Early History.
21. Wikipedia. History of the Medal of Honor: 20th Century Variations (Tiffany Cross).   
22. U.S. Navy Department Records. Criteria changes between 1919 and 1942.
23. Medal of Honor Review Board Report (1917) Findings.
24. Weista Promo Products Internal Quality Assurance Benchmarks. (Proprietary Data).
25. U.S. Army Center of Military History. Criteria and Definitions.
26. Wikipedia. Medal of Honor: 19th Century (Navy) Criteria.   
27. Wikipedia. Medal of Honor: World War I Criteria.   
28. U.S. Marine Corps Historical Division. Records of Dan Daly.
29. U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency. Air Force Medal of Honor recipients.
30. Department of Defense Instruction 1348.33. Policy on Decorations and Awards.