The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Legion of Merit to Colonel Robert Gooding McMaster (MCSN: 0-10953), United States Marine Corps, for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as a Joint Staff Officer in the Office of the Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities, Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from July 1965 to September 1968. During this period, Colonel McMaster consistently demonstrated extraordinary professional competence, devotion to duty and initiative in monitoring and analyzing national security aspects of political/military conflict developments in the Latin American, Middle Eastern and East African areas and providing within these areas, analyses and evaluations of United States policies, proposals and programs, existing or tentative, particularly in the field of counterinsurgency. Colonel McMaster’s efforts in carrying out these actions, many of them interdepartmental in nature, enhanced significantly the national level staff support, civilian and military alike, concerned with these areas of critically and involving vital United States national interests. By his outstanding professional skill, sound judgment and zealous devotion to duty, Colonel McMaster reflected great credit upon himself, the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.