The Distinguished Flying Cross

The Distinguished Flying Cross is a military decoration rewarded to any officer or enlisted member of the United States Armed Forces who distinguishes himself or herself in support of movement by "heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight, subsequent to November 11, 1918. Charles Lindbergh received the first presentation of the medal little more than a month later, from Coolidge during the time Washington, D.C. homecoming reception on June 11, 1927, from his trans-Atlantic flight. The medal had ardently been struck and readied just for that occasion. Interestingly, the 1927 War Department General Order (G.O. 8), authorizing Lindbergh's DFC states that it was awarded by the President, while the General Order (G.O. 6) for the Pan American Flyers' DFC citation notes that the War Department awarded it "by direction of the President."