Daniel Penny gets prestigious award from Marine Corps
Daniel Penny was honored Wednesday by the Marine Corps League at an Iwo Jima Day in Boston — where the former Devil Dog received the prestigious Semper Fidelis achievement award.
Penny — who was acquitted last year of criminally negligent homicide in the May 2023 killing of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway — attended the event with defense attorneys Thomas Kenniff and Steve Raiser, who also took home appreciation plaques.
The league “honored Danny for representing the Esprit De Corps of the Marines, defined by selfless service and sacrifice, when he risked his life by defending the people on that NYC train and we in turn successfully defended Danny from a prosecution that never should have been sought,” Raiser said in an emailed statement.
“We were honored and humbled to be in the same room being honored alongside many veterans of prior wars, including an Iwo Jima veteran and a retired general who served as one of the Tuskegee Airmen,” he continued.
Before the event, John M. MacGillivray of the Marine Corps League wrote in a letter that the Semper Fidelis award goes to “worthy and inspirational recipients.”
“We believe Daniel Penny and attorneys Raiser and Kenniff deserve such recognition and hope that they will consent to accept these awards,” he wrote.
The trio did, in fact, consent.
And they were photographed grinning — their awards in hand — after the Massachusetts State House ceremony.
The annual event — which may be in its final year — is held to recognize the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima, a five-week-long campaign that left 7,000 Marines dead and 20,000 wounded.
Despite the battle’s length and brutality, American forces eventually seized the island from the Japanese Imperial Army, moving the Allies one step closer to finally ending World War II.
But time — the undefeated killer — has left only a few veterans able to attend such commemorations.
And just one veteran of the great Pacific Theater battle made it to the 80th anniversary: 99-year-old Joe Cappuccio, the State House News Service reported.
“This may well be the last time that we conduct this ceremony,” MacGillivray wrote in his letter.
Marine Corps Commandant and four-star Gen. Eric Smith also acknowledged Penny at the ceremony, Kenniff said.
But afterward, Penny got an even more stunning commendation when legendary Tuskegee Airmen and retired Brigadier General Enoch “Woody” Woodhouse took his hand outside the State House, looked him in the eye and said, “I’m proud of you, son.”
“That’s a moment I don’t think any of us will forget,” Kenniff said.
