To amend title 38, United States Code, to increase the rate of the special pension payable to Medal of Honor recipients, and for other purposes, section 2, Sec. 2.
Written by .
Congress recites the standard the deed must meet
The document says “should”Who acts: CongressHow: statuteSec. 2 in the PDF
What the document says
“To earn the Medal of Honor ``the deed of the person . . . must be so outstanding that it clearly distinguishes his gallantry beyond the call of duty from lesser forms of bravery''.”
The second of the section's six findings. Congress sets out, in quotation marks and with an ellipsis of its own, the standard a deed must meet for the award. The finding names no source for the quoted words, and the source is not indexed here.
What the document actually says
“To earn the Medal of Honor ``the deed of the person . . . must be so outstanding that it clearly distinguishes his gallantry beyond the call of duty from lesser forms of bravery''.”
That sentence, in plain words
Congress quotes an old rule for the medal. The deed must stand far above other brave acts.
What this is about
The words are set in quotes in the law. They set a very high bar.
No action is recorded against this proposal. That is not evidence that none has been taken, and nobody has yet read it against the record. See what the tracker does not yet cover.
Medal of Honor Act, Public Law 119-43, sec. 2, 139 Stat. 667 (2025). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-119publ43/html/PLAW-119publ43.htm
This page
“Congress recites the standard the deed must meet,” Medal of Honor Act, section 2, Sec. 2. Read the Mandate, https://readthemandate.org/medal-honor-act/proposal/sec02-standard-for-the-award/ (retrieved October 10, 2026).
Cite the document when the claim is about what the document says. Cite this page when the indexing, the wording or the record of what has happened is what is being relied on.
How to Read This Page
The quotation is the document's own words, exactly as printed, checked against the page
number against the Act itself before publishing. The paragraph underneath is our summary,
not the document's words. So is the plain English version, which is why it sits beside the
quotation rather than replacing it.
