The shocked Vice president turned away from the cameras and wiped away some tears.
President Barack Obama on Thursday awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to Joe Biden, the man he called “the finest vice president we have ever seen.”
Biden and the president had gathered for what the White House had described as a final tribute to the vice president.
“So, Joe, for your faith in your fellow Americans, for your love of country, and for your lifetime of service that will endure through the generations, I’d like to ask the military aid to join us on stage. For the final time as president, I am pleased to award our nation’s highest civilian honor, the presidential medal of freedom,” the president said.
The shocked Vice president turned away from the cameras, wiped away some tears, then stood stoically as Mr. Obama draped the blue-and-white ribbon around his neck.
“I had no idea,” Mr. Biden said of the award, insisting he didn’t deserve it. He also praised Obama for serving the nation with dignity.
Obama praised Biden’s long service in the Senate and described him as a “lion of American history”.
“To know Joe Biden is to know love without pretense, service without self-regard and to live life fully,” Obama said.
“When Joe talks about hope and opportunities for our children, we hear the father who rode the rails home there every night so he could be there to tuck his kids into bed,” Obama said. “When Joe talks to Gold Star families who have lost a hero, we hear a kindred spirit, another father of an American veteran, somebody whose faith has been tested and has been forced to wander through the darkness himself and who knows who to lean on to find the light.”
Biden recounted that Obama offered help when Biden’s son Beau battling cancer and the vice president said he might sell his house to cover the bills.
“I’ll give you the money,” Biden recalled Obama telling him. “Promise me. Promise me you won’t sell that house.”
The Vice President, who advocated against the high-stakes raid that killed Osama bin Laden, said that he and Obama had on occasion differed on matters of policy, but that he had never doubted Obama’s judgement.
Joe Biden’s career in Washington started in 1972 steeped in tragedy when his wife and infant daughter died in a car crash just before he was to be sworn in as U.S senator. After exiting the national stage next week, he plans to stay active in Democratic politics and work on policy issues at a pair of institutes he’s developing at the University of Delaware and the University of Pennsylvania.