It's pretty easy to go all "Get Off My Lawn" over this...
You can see the complete order of precedence for awards and decorations here, and kudos to The Wiki's editors for updating the chart so quickly.
Pentagon Defends Precedence of New Medal: Pentagon officials justified the precedence of the new Distinguished Warfare Medal, which ranks above the Bronze Star Medal. "We are not diminishing at all the importance of the Bronze Star—that remains an important award for our combat troops," explained Pentagon Press Secretary George Little in the Defense Department's Feb. 19 release. DOD created the Distinguished Warfare Medal to recognize the combat achievements of personnel who aren't physically present on the battlefield, but whose actions have a direct effect on combat success. An example is a remotely piloted aircraft operator stationed far from the battlefield who controls an RPA in the combat zone that drops a bomb to take out a target. The new medal does not recognize valor, while Bronze Star awards may come with a Valor Device. That's one reason DOD has received some pushback over the precedence of the new medal after announcing it on Feb. 13. "We expect this award to be granted pretty rarely, and that factored in to the decision," said Little. Military leaders agreed that service members at rear locations are "doing incredible things, and we wanted the ability to recognize them," added Juliet Beyler, DOD' acting personnel management director. (AFPS report by Jim Garamone)I really do expect this award to become known as the "video game" medal, or something similar. I'm not disparaging the efforts of those who fly RPAs, or the weapons controllers/sensor operators who sit beside them. Everyone's efforts and contributions are important to the team, but we already have decorations that are suitable for such service... like the MSM, AF Commendation Medal, and so on. Just sayin'.
You can see the complete order of precedence for awards and decorations here, and kudos to The Wiki's editors for updating the chart so quickly.
Not quite O/T -
ReplyDeleteI served with a number of sailors who earned the Antarctic Expedition Medal.
They called it the Operation Deep Freeze medal.
They all claimed the best thing about Deep Freeze was the stopovers in OZ.
I've heard a LOT of sailors go on about Perth and other Aussie ports.
DeleteYeah, but can you imagine getting a medal for it?
DeleteStranger things have happened, Skip. I can count a couple of my awards in that category. ;-)
DeleteI had read about this medal on NavyOne's blog. Not being military, I don't feel qualified to comment. Your thoughts are much the same as the other milbloggers at Navyone's blog.
ReplyDeleteI sat on this for a week, Lou. I couldn't find a decent graphic of the medal is one reason, trying to get a handle on my outrage was another.
DeleteNot only does it rank above the Bronze Star, but the Purple Heart and Air Medal as well. Taking the last first,, both of the latter involve armed combat, i.e., getting shot at. This fact ALONE should rank these two above the "Captain Video and the Video Rangers" medal. And the Bronze Star for Meritorious Service is specifically intended to be awarded ONLY for action "in the face of the enemy" i.e., in a designated combat zone, where, it is assumed that, even for REMEF types these is at least some risk and/or discomfort involved. With the addition of the "V" device for gallantry in action to the Bronze-Star award the insult becomes even greater. Often these is very little difference between the risks involved in a Bronze-Star combat award and that of a Silver-Star performance.
ReplyDeleteThe rank-ordering of this "Captain Video" award is an insult--a slap in the face--to all who have ever risked their lives in the performance of their duties. It makes me puke. It's sickening enough enough to make even the proverbial "Wretching Jackal" of Mad Magazine fame seem in perfect health..
All excellent points and I share your feelings, Virgil.
Delete** "...there is at least some risk..."
ReplyDeleteSome were a bit more, forthright in their thoughts of who should be on their lawn...
ReplyDeleteI think it's a dilution of the standards. That's it. A watering down, while I'm not trying to be all full of piss on anyone who's served, I do see there's already a full list of participatory awards.
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2013/02/and-son-this-medal-is-for.html#comments
A lot of the community at Blackfive were shooters in their past lives (and present, for some), and some have Bronze Stars. Those guys have EVERY right to be outraged.
DeleteYes, Deebow, the writer of the linked column I have in my above comment...
ReplyDelete"And if you are thinking "Deebow, why are you so upset about this? Don't you want to recognize the contributions that these people have made to the GWOT?"
Ask me that after you read my Bronze Star citation..."
Am I wrong in thinking that this medal is for officers only? Officers don't get promotion points, so it's all a wash to me.
ReplyDeleteI maxed out on promotion points from medals at my 15 year point. I can't remember now, but I think it was 25 points max. Anyway I had a shit-load of Air Medals and one Aerial Achievement Medal (3 points each), plus the usual commendation, and Achievement medals. We got an Air Medal for 20 combat support or combat missions (fighters and bombers only had to do 10). Base Flight records kept the count using the AFTO 781 mission logs. Only one flight a day counted, so if you had four sorties a day (common) only one counted (bastards!). Sadly, Air Medals don't count for special license plates. I wonder why - maybe because they are like beads on Mardi Gras wo-mans...
The rules read like the IRS. If you took off and landed in Arabia, no combat support unless you were moving troops to a staging point for invasion. So we always made it a point to do a wide turn that put us over Iraq for at least .1 hour on the 781 :-)
Course every other swinging dick was maxing out at the same point, so you were still a loser trying to make Master under 16.
Interesting stuff, Médaille. I never even came CLOSE to maxing out medal points, what with only two AFCMs before I retired and got the usual MSM exit award. But I've gone on about how it was different in my day... yours, too.
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