P.O.W.S Essay, Research Paper

The armed forces has lost its head by presenting six decorations to the three released P.O.W.s. I do non intend to torment on the three military personnels & # 8212 ; although one did compose a & # 8220 ; Thank You & # 8221 ; note to his prison guards for his crestless wave Motel 6 intervention, but more to the point is the harm such giveaway policies do to our military awards plans. Remember what Napoleon said about awards: & # 8220 ; Give me adequate thread and I will suppress the world. & # 8221 ; So that all of you have a complete list of the awards the three & # 8220 ; heroes & # 8221 ; got, I will name them for you:

Purple Heart

Army Commendation Medal

P.O.W. Medal

Armed Forces Medal

United Nations Medal

NATO Medal

The Purple Heart is awarded for lesions suffered while in armed combat with an opposing force, for lesions received while in combat & # 8220 ; operations & # 8221 ; in a combat zone or for lesions received from terrorist Acts of the Apostless while in the armed forces. It is besides awarded to the following of family when person is KIA or dies as the consequence of lesions received. How can the Pentagon give out Purple Hearts for hurts received that are no worse than those received in a H.S. football game? Yes, they were soldiers ; yes, they were on a mission and yes, they were & # 8220 ; treated approximately & # 8221 ; & # 8212 ; broken olfactory organs, cracked ribs, chipped dentitions, cuts and scratchs. Is the Army stating me that the same award for being killed, maimed or shot-up in a firefight is the same award for taking a fist to the chops & # 8212 ; & # 8220 ; treated approximately & # 8221 ; ?

I propose a new award & # 8212 ; the & # 8220 ; Black & A ; Blue Device. & # 8221 ; It would resemble the old W.W.II ruptured duck or merely be a field Red Cross on a white background the International Sign for First Aid. And by the manner, it was the President himself who referred to them as detainees and stated that they & # 8220 ; weren & # 8217 ; t in a war zone. & # 8221 ; Now they & # 8217 ; re hailed as conquest heroes and given combat awards

for sterling public presentation in a war zone.

The Army Commendation Medal, besides known as the & # 8220 ; Green Weenie, & # 8221 ; is awarded for & # 8220 ; meritable accomplishment & # 8221 ; or for & # 8220 ; heroism in combat. & # 8221 ; It & # 8217 ; s intend to be a smack on the dorsum for a occupation good done. What was meritable or valiant about these three soldiers conduct? No arms were fired except by the Serbs and the Pentagon & # 8217 ; s three latest heroes & # 8212 ; retrieve Capt. Scott O & # 8217 ; Grady

( Bosnia ) and Warrant Officer Michael Durant ( Somalia ) who received similar heroes & # 8217 ; welcomes when their actions were besides on the & # 8220 ; flakey-side & # 8221 ; & # 8212 ; didn & # 8217 ; t successfully hedge the & # 8220 ; enemy. & # 8221 ; All the latest poster-boys did was resignation. That sort of misdemeanor of the & # 8220 ; Code of Conduct & # 8221 ; gets rewarded? Article II of the Code provinces: & # 8220 ; I will ne’er give up of my ain free will. If in bid, I will ne’er give up my work forces while they still have the agencies to resist. & # 8221 ; The intent of awards is to animate and acknowledge military personnels when they have stood tall in conflict, fought the good battle and displayed heroism & # 8220 ; in the face of the enemy. & # 8221 ; That could imply returning fire upon a superior force and hiting holes in some bad cats. Put merely, a contending force demands to animate and acknowledge FIGHTING, RESISTING, and COMBATING the enemy. What is referred to as FIGHTING SPIRIT! As Hack pointed out to m

vitamin E, “They give a

decorations out now for merely being a P.O.W. & # 8221 ; Yes, I do believe that lasting as a P.O.W. is an achievement that requires, in most every instance, heroic attempts merely to last, but giving an award for it seems banal, condescending and demeans all the past P.O.W. heroes such as Vice Admiral James Stockdale and Colonel George & # 8220 ; Bud & # 8221 ; Day. In about three and a half old ages in a combat theatre, Audie Murphy received 13 ornaments and a battlefield committee. During his enlistment with the 3rd Infantry Division, he fought from North Africa to Sicily to Italy to France and right on through Germany and into Czechoslovakia. All his clip was spent in rifle companies and the figure of yearss he spent in the line was bloody near 400.

Audie Murphy, America & # 8217 ; s most adorned G.I. from WWII, gets 13 awards for 400 yearss of combating with Nazis, killing Nazis and seeing his friends killed twenty-four hours in and twenty-four hours out. These three Cavalry military personnels who didn & # 8217 ; t return fire, were the victims of unsmooth intervention, and who surrendered receive half as many awards as Audie Murphy? Audie really punched holes in enemy military personnels. Against a superior force, Audie used a.50 cal while atop a combustion armored combat vehicle destroyer for darn near an hr & # 8212 ; he single-handedly could account for 50 enemy KIA & # 8217 ; s. He was awarded the Medal of Honor and lost half his buttocks in the procedure. It seems to me that these three military personnels are, like Capt. O & # 8217 ; Grady and W.O. Durant, being used, and are victims in all this. From where I sit the whole debacle sounds like & # 8220 ; meritable underachievement & # 8221 ; while being used as portion of some & # 8220 ; Clark Clinton Super Spin & # 8221 ; run by the Army, NATO and the

Administration in peculiar. Soldiers who deserve a Purple Heart are military personnels such as Navy Lt. Jack Daly. Jack was lasered by a lasing device from a Russian ship, the Kapitan Mann, in 1997. His seeing is deteriorating and he is in changeless hurting. He may finally travel blind. The U.S. Navy has non awarded him a Purple Heart, nevertheless. Why? Because you can non see his lesions? Or is it that admiting his lesions may make another National Security crisis, farther hurt our dealingss with the Russians and wouldn & # 8217 ; Ts make good Clinton & # 8220 ; spin & # 8221 ; ?

Don & # 8217 ; t concentrate your choler and derision at the three military personnels involved in this muss. The Army failed in its primary mission to these military personnels & # 8212 ; fix them for combat. The current & # 8220 ; Be All You Can Be & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; Consideration Of Others & # 8221 ; developing crowd of PR types is to fault. Troops in a combat country should be trained for combat and opposition. Weapons carried should be loaded, adequate ammunition made available and the will to utilize them instilled. These hapless chaps were trained for failure, I & # 8217 ; m afraid. Now, it seems, that & # 8220 ; failure & # 8221 ; must be hidden behind the smoke screen of making heroes out of three really used and baffled poster-boys. ( Hack Note: The other twenty-four hours I saw a adult female soldier at an airdrome who had five rows of threads. She looked like a cross between a Russian General and Douglas MacArthur. If this give away plan & # 8212 ; which has made the US military & # 8217 ; s awards system a Barracks gag among our NATO Allies

continues, the Pentagon will shortly be publishing awards with the MRE. Kind of like the plaything that used to be in Cracker Jacks. )