Kansas City, Mo. ? Richard B. Myers, former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he supports the nomination of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to lead the CIA.

“General Hayden is a terrific guy,” Myers said Monday before receiving the Harry S. Truman Good Neighbor Award in Kansas City. “I’ve known him for a good part of my career, and he’s a terrific intelligence officer who has done a good job at the (National Security Agency).

Some members of Congress have criticized Hayden’s nomination, saying they are uncomfortable with a military officer overseeing a civilian agency.

When asked about progress in Iraq and Afghanistan, Myers said he preferred to focus on the bigger issue of “the war on terrorism.”

“It’s one we have lost sight of, I think, in this country because we focus on the smaller battles in that war,” he said.

But terrorism, Myers said, “is the greatest threat we’ve ever faced, except maybe for the Civil War, to our way of life, to our democracy.”

Myers said the fights in Afghanistan and Iraq have resulted in some rewards.

“We have 50 million people who have voted who didn’t vote for decades,” Myers said. “It’s a huge step forward. Are there problems in both places? Yes.”

He said the struggles in both countries were comparable to challenges the United States faced in its early days.

“We had some real issues that took us years to work through,” he said. “I don’t know why we expect instant success in places that are very difficult.”

Myers, a Kansas City native, served as Joint Chiefs chairman from 2001 through 2005.

In accepting the Truman Award, Myers said Truman’s decision to integrate the U.S. armed forces resulted in a military in which “you were promoted on your merits and not what color you were.”

U.S. Army Master Sgt. Juanita Milligan, of Andover, Kan., received the Philip Pistilli Silver Veterans Medal. The mother of three suffered serious injuries last year in Iraq. She thanked her comrades, especially two soldiers who put themselves in great danger to drive her to a field hospital after she was injured.

The bonds formed between men and women on the battlefield, Milligan said, “run as deep as the blood through your veins.”