President Donald Trump has signed the Hershel "Woody" Williams National Medal of Honor Monument Location Act, clearing the way for a National Medal of Honor Monument to be built within the Reserve, a protected section of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., near the Lincoln Memorial. He signed the bill during a ceremony at the National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas, where he met more than a dozen living recipients. The legislation does not create the monument itself, which Congress had already authorised in 2021, but it permits the memorial to be sited within the highly protected Reserve alongside some of the capital's most prominent landmarks.

The act is named after Marine Hershel "Woody" Williams, who received the Medal of Honor for his actions at Iwo Jima and was the last surviving Second World War recipient when he died in 2022. Trump praised recipients' bravery and recounted Williams' exploits before family members present at the ceremony, which was attended by 16 of the nation's 65 living Medal of Honor recipients, according to museum foundation chair Charlotte Jones. The effort to create and locate the monument has passed Congress unanimously eight times over six years, and the exact site will be chosen by the National Park Service before a design competition is launched; the project will be funded entirely through private donations rather than federal money.