David French writing for The Corner at the National Review On-Line has some interesting things to say about awards and decorations in the Global War on Terror (can we still call it that?).
Are we less courageous now? Or is the military stifling valor awards in a labyrinthine bureaucracy dominated by rear echelon second-guessers?
…The men I served with were courageous at a level that civilians simply cannot comprehend. Let me give just one example. In January 2008, a small team of American soldiers was ambushed after an al-Qaeda terrorist faked a surrender (this was common practice). The team leader and another officer were mortally wounded the instant the terrorists opened fire. The senior noncommissioned officer was pinned down and unable to take effective control of the formation; other officers were worked desperately to retrieve their fallen comrades. A Sergeant First Class took immediate control of the situation, personally returning fire and killing the majority of the attackers, directing the team’s defense, and coordinating the recovery under fire of his stricken team members. He shepherded the formation out of the kill zone and coordinated the medical evacuation.
The Soldier he describes was also shot in the neck at the beginning of the battle…he received a Silver Star (our nation’s 3rd highest award for valor) for his actions, I would argue that he probably deserved a higher award.
It’s hard for a Soldier to address the award situation without sounding like a whiner, for if you give personal examples you tend to sound like an ungrateful SOB at best or a publicity seeking glory hound at worst…that’s why most of us when asked about what we did will say, “I was just doing my job”. But was it really just our jobs? Is getting up every day and going to work knowing that people are going to try their best to kill you, “just your job”? Or does that require some sort of courage from the get-go? I would say at least in my situation at first I had to work myself up to go on some missions, but after a while you got used to it…and it became “just a job”. But I can tell you that just because somebody says they were just doing their job, it doesn’t mean that didn’t require some type of intestinal fortitude on their part.
I can relate a story about some awards for people in my unit that were sent up to Division, were denied by higher and returned with the comment, “If I don’t give a PFC in an MRAP a Bronze Star when his vehicle gets struck by an IED why should we give a pilot an Air Medal just because he lands a shot-up helicopter?” Let’s not mention the fact that we are comparing apple and oranges, but how can you argue with that? You can’t fight city hall and you can’t go around the award approval chain of command. So I am sure that my Division headquarters was not alone in their attitude…and there’s the answer to all the questions about awards.
It’s the guys at places like Victory Base that never go outside the wire unless they have a 20 man personal security detail and an attack weapons team overhead, that downgrade or disapprove awards. People like MG Fil, former commander of the 1st Cavalry Division who downgraded several awards for valor to non-valor awards with no comment, just the stroke of a pen, a check in a box. Those are the people that need to answer these questions.
Go read the rest of Mr. French’s article HERE. It’s worth your valuable time.
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Outlaw… is there a lack of combat experience in the upper echelon of officers who make these decisions?
Let me preface the following saying that I’m sincerely curious since I obviously don’t have any direct experience.
Regarding the shot up helicopter… does that happen maybe not regularly, but enough to where an awards commission sees enough of those over years and Divisions to not “stand out”? It would seem that in a hot war such things would be more common and thus harder to elevate — picking the most heroic out of daily heroic acts would seem an impossible task. Give too many and it’s Little League. Give too few and you’re hampered by a bureaucratic quagmire…. All that being said it does seem as if — especially given 10 years of war in various theaters that there is a lack of awards.
I found it interesting following the story of MOH Winner John Basilone on HBO’s The Pacific….. 5-star hotels, banging Hollywood starlets, newspaper interviews in every city…. Today you have to do some digging to find out who these guys are and what they did — bad for the military — worse for us as it contributes to the impression that our liberty just “is” instead of earned and maintained.
As the risk of turning this into a class on the military, I will attempt to clear up some of your questions.
There are several levels an award has to travel through to get approved.
If say a squad of Soldiers is on patrol and someone does something worthy of note, upon return to base a person or persons who witnessed said event would fill out a sworn statement, and/or a DA-638 (Recommendation for Award), they would then depending on their rank and position submit it to higher, in this case the platoon leader ( a lieutenant) or PLT SGT. Assuming they agree it is then submitted to company (a Captain), then battalion (a Lieutenant Col), then brigade (Col) and then Division (2 Star (MG)). If the award is higher than a bronze star it then goes to Corps ( 3 Star (LTG)), if it is higher than a Silver Star it leaves theater and is approved by someone in Washington.
In the case of the aviation awards I mentioned, those awards were screened and approved by the Soldier’s chain of command and then approved by the highest ranking aviator in the division (a COL) before going to Division for the two star general’s approval (who has never been at the controls of a helicopter in combat EVER). Without getting into the specifics of what happened on the mission I can assure you that the award of an air medal for bringing back a damaged aircraft, whose weapons were on fire, whose hydraulics were partially shot out is not devaluing that award. During the Vietnam conflict there were Army helicopter pilots that earned over 100 air medals. During this conflict USAF pilots generally earn air medals after a certain number of missions (not sure of their formula), but the Army has no such policy. As a result we have people after a tour where they flew over 1000 hours against an armed enemy all well within range of the enemy’s weapons systems, receive a single air medal for their efforts.
I don’t know if it is ignorance, jealousy or what, but there is a problem. The efforts of brave men are grossly under-rewarded, and a lot of the problem is at echelons above reality (as the saying goes).
Here’s a link the the policy letter on Award Approval Authority.
Hope that clears up some of your questions.
Thanks Outlaw. Seeing that chain it’s a wonder people don’t die of natural causes before they get awards. The logical assumption is ignorance and jealousy — a dangerous combination when added to authority.
They should put me in the chain. “Holy shit! He did what?!? Give that man a medal!”
I’m with Floyd.
Outlaw, your description of the bureaucracy is almost comic.
Are you sure the process was not devised by the Vogons?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbN1NaQ7yQI
What I find repugnant is that there are NO living Medal of Honor recipients from the War on Terror. Every single one of those awards is posthumous. I can only deduce that the military is terrified of having actually heroes of that stature available to tell their story, or that those GoFo’s who run things are as ‘effed up as a soup sandwich and don’t want to be upstaged by someone who actually WORKS for a living.
I agree with Outlaw here. We have too large an admin force, and too many folks in the chain checking boxes. We also have too many “I was there” awards, and those may well be influencing the actual numbers of awards for gallantry.
I don’t have a good answer, but I do know that the system is broken, and the entire military organization needs a serious overhaul, especially in the upper echelons.
Tim… is one problem then too many medals (of the gimme type) on the one hand, but a fear of honoring excellence on the other? If that’s the case then it seems like the Baby Boomer educational system has done what it was designed it to do. Sadly.
How many Medals of Honor have been awarded,Tim? Not nearly enough,I expect.
6 times in the current conflict, none of the recipients were living. This is all in the article that was linked.
Thanks,Outlaw,I’ll read it.
Thanks for posting French’s column, Outlaw, and while my blood boils our devolved “everyone’s a winner” society refuses to recognize true winners/heroes — Jesus, six? that’s it?!?! — I will simply thank you and your unit (and all units) again.
Please say a prayer for this soldier’s family. F’in actors.
One consideration is that standards for the Medal of Honor have definitely evolved over the years, to the point that it (like the Victoria’s Cross) is invariably awarded posthumously. It is purely coincidental that this avoids the problem inherent in the fact that MoH recipients are not typically the sort of people with whom our upper crusts are accustomed to dining.
As implied in comments above, failure to recognize valor tends to redound to the detriment of the “echelons above reality”, engendering contempt for the high command.
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