McClellan Announces 2025 Veteran of the Year Recipient
Washington, D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan (VA-04) announced the recipient of the 2025 Veteran of the Year Award for Virginia’s Fourth Congressional District: U.S. Air Force Colonel William Woodard Butler.
“My Veteran of the Year Program seeks to celebrate our district’s veterans, their loved ones and their service community,” said Congresswoman McClellan. “This year, I am honored to recognize U.S. Air Force Colonel William Butler as our Veteran of the Year for Virginia’s Fourth Congressional District. With over 30 years of service between active duty and reserves, Colonel Butler has devoted his entire military career and beyond to improving the lives of our service members, advancing medical research and giving back to his community. I thank him for his service to our nation and admire all he has done for those he swore to protect and defend.”
Col. Butler has built a well-founded military career to save lives and expand our understanding in surgery, tropical, hyperbaric and aerospace medicine. He has over 980 hours of flight time, of which over 65 were in combat. After completing two overseas deployments — one to Okinawa and one to Qatar — he served as a professor of aerospace medicine in the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine and became internationally recognized for his work with altitude-induced decompression sickness and aeromedical evacuation.
After retiring from the Air Force, Col. Butler continued to serve as an aerospace medicine consultant to the Air Force for another decade. Between his military and consultant careers, he has authored over 150 publications, most notably the definitive 200+-page academic monograph teaching how best to affect the safe aeromedical evacuation of critically ill and injured casualties.
Additionally, he has become a steadfast presence in the Tri-Cities area. Col. Butler now serves as a trustee for the John Randolph Foundation and a member of Hopewell’s City Planning Commission. He helped establish a permanently endowed scholarship for Chesterfield, Hopewell and Prince George students pursuing a medical career. His mentorship and work as a theater validating flight surgeon, an aeromedical evacuation researcher and professor has touched the lives of hundreds, if not thousands in his community.
See Rep. McClellan's announcement on the House floor here.