For 100 years, the Guardian Spirits have stood atop the National WWI Museum and Memorial. They were carved to represent Honor, Courage, Sacrifice and Patriotism – the virtues a generation lived out, and Kansas City vowed to remember. The Guardian Spirit Award carries that legacy forward, honoring individuals and organizations who embody those same virtues today.
This award recognizes an individual of unwavering integrity and moral bravery, whose service has asked for nothing in return. It honors years, not days, spent advancing a cause larger than themselves. Guardian Spirit honorees strengthen democratic institutions and defend the constitutional principles so many have fought to protect, earning the respect of people who do not always agree with each other. The Guardian Spirit Award celebrates those whose characters speak for themselves.
The Guardian Spirit Award will be presented at the Museum and Memorial's Centennial Gala on Sept. 21, 2026, and is part of its ongoing work to preserve the memory of WWI and champion the ideals it was fought to defend.
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The 2026 Guardian Spirit Award is a sculpture of a dove from Kansas City bronze sculptor Tom Corbin.
Guardian Spirit Award Recipient
General Mark A. Milley, U.S. Army (Retired)
20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General Mark A. Milley spent 44 years in uniform, from 1980 to 2023, holding fast to his oath to the Constitution through decades of peace, war, and crisis. He is recognized with the inaugural Guardian Spirit Award for that sustained fidelity to country and to the office he held, as well as for his role in defending and upholding the nation's democratic institutions during a period of significant national and global uncertainty.
Commissioned through Army ROTC at Princeton University, General Milley rose through six Army divisions and a Special Forces Group. He deployed to Panama, Haiti, Bosnia, Iraq and three tours in Afghanistan, along with service on the DMZ in Korea. He served as the 39th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army from 2015 to 2019, then as the 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2019 to 2023, the nation's highest-ranking military officer and principal advisor to the President, Secretary of Defense, and National Security Council.
His devotion to country reaches across his family’s history. Two of General Milley’s great-uncles served in World War I, part of the very generation the Museum and Memorial was built to honor. One of them was wounded at Gallipoli while the other was wounded at the Meuse-Argonne. His father landed at Kwajalean, Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima in WWII while his mother was in the Navy treating the wounded stateside. Uncles, cousins and more have served since. The Milley family has worn of the cloth of this nation for well over a century.
General Milley is honored not for any single moment, but for a lifetime of fidelity to the oath he swore and the constitutional principles the Liberty Memorial was built to uphold, principles that outlast any one generation or era.
