our report tonight from our pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski. >> reporter: for 72-year-old vietnam veteran, melvin morris, it was 44 years and coming. when president obama called with the news, morris collapsed to his knees. >> i was overwhelmed at that point. and he was saying, be cool, be cool, be cool. >> reporter: today at a highly emotional white house ceremony, president obama presented a medal of honor to 24 service members from world war ii, korea, and vietnam. all passed over at the time because they were hispanic, jewish or african-american. >> the ceremony is 70 years in the making. as one family member has said, this is long overdue. >> reporter: only three including melvin morris are living today. one by one for more than an hour, each citation was read. >> knocking out the enemy mortar position and destroying both bunkers and killing their occupants. >> reporter: the president presented the highest military honor to the families of those who dedicated their lives to their country. as one of the original army green berets, staff sergeant melvin morris volunteered twice

jim miklaszewski is at the pentagon for us tonight. jim, good evening. >> reporter: brian, that phone call tonight between the two presidents may have warned ukraine at least a short reprieve from a russian invasion. defense officials here tell us that as of tonight the russians already have in place enough military firepower to invade ukraine. there is an estimated 40,000 heavily armed russian troops that are positioned near the border. they're armed with tanks, attack helicopters, even field hospitals to treat any possible wounded. now, all of those troops are currently buttoned down and out of sight at three remote russian military bases that are located about 40 to 60 miles away from the ukrainian border. intelligence officials believe that russia wants to seize a large portion of southeastern ukraine. that would provide the military with a direct and open land route from russia to crimea. now if those upcoming talks with russia should break down for any reason, u.s. officials here worn that russia would still be able to launch an i

jim miklaszewski, thank you very much. >>> that's it for this hour. chris jansing is up next.e more on that breaking news. >>> plus also breaking news on the criminal vaccinatiinvestiga what the fbi may be looking for on the hard drives taken from the home of one of the pilots. re my vacation photos, i'm saving a ton of time by posting them to my wall. oh, i like that one. it's so quick! it's just like my car insurance. i saved 15% in just 15 minutes. i saved more than that in half the time. i unfriend you. that's not how it works. that's not how any of this works. [ male announcer ] 15 minutes for a quote isn't how it works anymore. with esurance, 7 1/2 minutes could save you on car insurance. welcome to the modern world. esurance. backed by allstate. click or call. welcome to the modern world. your hepatitis c.forget it's slow moving, you tell yourself. i have time. after all there may be no symptoms for years. no wonder you try to push it to the back of your mind and forget it. but here's something you shouldn't forget. hepatitis c is a serious disease. if left untreated, i

nbc's jim miklaszewski. we appreciate it. a great op-ed in today's "wall street journal" from chess legend gary ka smpb pmspparov. he said target their assets abroad, their mansions, and ipos in london and their yachts. use banks not tanks. joining us now to talk about this and more, former u.s. ambassador to the ukraine william taylor and managing part of beacon policy advisors. steve co-authored this "wall street journal" op-ed piece this week with my friend bob. gentlemen thank you very much. mr. ambassador let me go to you. what's your thought on this gary kasparov thought that the only people to go after is the oligards. their asset, bank deposits. is that realistic? >> it is. and the think, the people to go after are the people who are making these decisions, that is the government officials, people in the parliament, if there are advisors to mr. putin, then they should go after them, individual sanctions as you say, take away visas so they can't travel to the united states or europe. freeze their assets that they have

joining me now, jim miklaszewski.retary of defense had an hour-long conversation with his russian counterpart yesterday, demanding an explanation for the russian troop build-up. what can you tell us? >> in that call, secretary hagel pressed the defense minister for russia, on just what are those troops doing there. now, that defense minister assured, according to u.s. officials here, assured this defense secretary that these troops are only conducting an exercise and that russia has no intention of invading ukraine. but i can tell you there are many people in this building who don't necessarily buy that explanation. and there's probably the highest level of concern about the possibility of a pending military operation than i have ever seen in this building in recent times. and one of the reasons is for an exercise, they've got more than 20,000 forces, including ground forces, tanks, artillery, and attack helicopters, just a few kilometers across the ukrainian border inside russia. and as you mentioned, chris, they cou

let's go to nbc news pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski. >> i have to admit, when the news firstshed across the reuters wires that the russians had launched a ballistic missile, everybody suspected it was a test. nevertheless, it sent all the reporters scrambling here in the building and in very short order, we got confirmation from defense and u.s. military officials that yes indeed, the russians had launched a ballistic missile in a test launch from a launch site near the caspian sea. the dummy warhead hit its target in kazakhstan according to the russians and all was well. according to u.s. military officials, this was a pre-planned, pre-scheduled launch for some time. and in compliance with the s.t.a.r.t. treaty and all maritime international laws, the russians had made all the proper notifications well before the launch occurred. according to u.s. military officials, it's not unusual to test icbms. the united states does it from vandenberg air force base in california on an average of about twice a year. >> jim miklaszewski, a big story at the pentagon. i'm sure we will hear

his ideas about the known unknown to the public, questioned by nbc's pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski in regard to iraq, weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, is there any evidence to indicate iraqi has attempted to or is willing to supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction? because there are reports that there is no evidence of a direct link between baghdad and these terrorist organizations. thatports that say something has not happened are always interesting to me because, as we know, there are ns, things that we know, as well as known unknowns. things that we know that we do not know. but there are also unknown unknowns, things that we do not know we do not know. if one looks at the history of our country and other free countries it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones. so people who have the omniscience that they can say with high certainty that something has not happened, or is not being tried, have capabilities that are -- what was the word that you used earlier? they can do things i cannot do. it -- is me, but this this and unknown known? >>

. >> nbc's jim miklaszewski at the pentagon. let's talk about possible outcomes with a man who knows a thing or two about conflicts like this. >> retired army colonel jake jacobs joins us. colonel, good to have you here. >> thanks for having me. >> do you take the same attitude as mick's sources, that hopefully they stop at crimea or is this chamberlin-esque? >> it sounds superficially like it's 1938 again, but at the end of the day it's vitally important to russia to keep that port. if we can remember what has happened over the past several months with thee esu trying to entice ukraine to come over to its side and the violence that occurred in ukraine after that, we can see the consternation that develops in the mind of a guy like putin. there's an old saying, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that people are out to get you. there's no question putin feels threatened by any move that would threaten their only year-round ice-freeport. if we notice their move is into crim crimea, it's a limited objective attack. it's not

it's from nbc news pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski, saying senior u.s. military officials are saying that thousands of russian troops have staged on the ukrainian border, as president obama sanctions more russians. that's all coming up next. plus, phil and the mystery of malaysia airlines flight 370. phil, maybe we're getting a little break? >> i think that we're getting close, sue. but it's still unconfirmed reports out of australia, as they look at fields of debris, perhaps two pieces of debris from that malaysian flight. we'll show you what they're looking at when "power lunch" returns. " returns. in a world that's changing faster than ever, we believe outshining the competition tomorrow quires challenging your business inside and out today. at cognizant, we help forward-looking companies run better and run different - to give your customers every reason to keep looking for you. so if you're ready to see opportunities and see them through, we say: let's get to work. because the future belongs to those who challenge the present. >>> welcome back to "po

nbc's jim miklaszewski is at the pentagon with the very latest. jim, good morning. >> good morning, natalie. u.s. officials are calling this operation flawless. this happened in the eastern mediterranean off the coast of cyprus when the team of the navy s.e.a.l.s team slipped aboard the hijacked libyan oil tanker and quickly overpowered the three libyan hijackers. u.s. officials say that nobody was hurt and it's not clear that any shots were even fired. now, the three hijackers themselves are members of a powerful libyan militia. and they actually seized the ship while in port in libya. evidence once more that the libyan government is still pretty much powerless more than two years after the overthrow of moammar gadhafi. >> meanwhile, jim at the pentagon, you have been following the other big story, the military's high profile case of sexual assault is going to come to an end later today with some of the most serious charges being dropped against a brigadier general in favor of a plea deal. tell us more. >> that's right, natalie. this is a huge bla

jim miklaszewski at the pentagon. >> reporter: the pinger locater can zero in on an airliner's black box up to 25,000 feet below the surface. but it doesn't have a very wide range. it needs a relatively specific search area to be effective. >> reporter: to do that, crews will have to estimate how far any floating debris might have drifted from the wreckage. and that area of the indian ocean is extremely volatile. >> the winds become very strong and sweep up the water and create these giant waves. among the largest waves in the world in this part of the ocean. >> we talked to that oceanographer in sydney yesterday. we talked about listening for the pinger, which is on the end of the black box. the trouble is, you may need to be on top of the black box for the sonars to detect it because of the thermal layers in the ocean and the currents and conditions. back to you, savannah. >> and only about 30 days total it makes that sound. thank you very much. let's turn to a former ntsb investigator. greg, good morning to you. >> good morning, savannah. >> i know malaysian authorities have said