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On February 6th, Robert and Linda Ollis of Staten Island finally received a phone call they had been expecting for 13 years: President Trump announced that their son, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis, would be receiving a Congressional Medal of Honor. Ollis stepped in front of a suicide bomber during an attack on Forward Operating Base Ghazni in Afghanistan in July, 2013, saving several lives while sacrificing his own in the process. On Monday, as world events set a reminder for why America’s soldiers fight for their country, the Ollis family accepted Michael’s Medal of Honor from Donald Trump in a ceremony at the White House.
Kim Ollis-LoSchiavo, sister of Michael Ollis, was there for the ceremony, which honored her brother and two other Medal recipients. She appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program to describe the mixture of pride, sorrow and elation that filled the room yesterday.
“It was just a bittersweet, surreal day,” Ollis-LoSchiavo recounted for host Larry Mendte. “We felt like we were in a dream, walking in a dream, just walking in the beautifully decorated new wings that Donald Trump put together. The ceremony itself was beautiful. The waiting area, being able to meet with him and actually meet with families of the other Medal of Honor recipients was, and to hear their American hero stories, was just so bittersweet and amazingly patriotic, and it was able, really, to bring people together.”
Ollis-LoSchiavo, who loudly whooped for joy in the background when Trump called the family, felt much more somber when the ceremony was conducted: “I was crying yesterday. I think yesterday, after thirteen years, [was] really the first time I was able just to grieve a little bit and just really appreciate my brother. It kind of all just came to a head for me yesterday.”
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