On January 16, 1969, four days before leaving office, President Lyndon B. Johnson presented Pless the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony. Also receiving the Medal of Honor that day was fellow Newnan, Georgia, native Joe M. Jackson, an Air Force pilot who, like Pless, had earned the nation's highest military decoration for an air rescue in Vietnam. Legend states that, upon realizing that both Pless and Jackson were from the same small Georgia town, President Johnson quipped "there must be something in the water down in Newnan".