Medals, Medals, Everywhere

[unhappycamper]

unhappycamper note: Since the ‘Pentagon’ (DoD? Gannett?) has ‘requested’ that I only post one paragraph from articles on Army Times, and Airforce Times, To keep in that same (new) tradition, I will also do the same for for articles on Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, stripes.com and military.com.
To read the article in the military's own words, you will need to click the link.

Read all about Fair Use here. It sure is beginning to smell like fascism.

unhappycamper summary of this article: When I went thru Vietnam (67~68 and 69~70), the Army was handing out Bronze Stars and Army Commendation medals for each tour of duty.




Soldiers’ OEF, OIF medals exceed 857,000
By Jim Tice - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 22, 2010 5:27:43 EST

The combined total of 857,390 equates to about 48 percent of the Army medal count for World War II, 30 percent of the total for the Vietnam War and seven times the number awarded for the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War.

[Submariner]

1. I visited the USS Nautilus at the CT sub base recently

and I could not help but notice that today's submariners had 3 to 4 rows of ribbons/medals on their dress uniforms. About 8 to 12 pieces of fruit salad.

During the Cold War/Vietnam War submariners did not get much in the way of medals. I got the standard National Defense medal when I enlisted, and got out with the same medal. At the time, the Navy submarine service did not want to broadcast where the sub sailors and their submarines went on patrol. So wearing a Murmansk, Havana, or Hanoi campaign medals would have been uncool.

I guess today's standards are quite different. Medals seem like poor morale boosters imho.

[unhappycamper]

2. Over the years I've come to realize they were handing out eye candy to keep the troops quiet. n/t

[Call Me Wesley]

4. Even the Germans get a new 'fighter' medal for their service in Afghanistan.

They had a medal for any foreign campaign before, but the new one should distinguish between just peacekeeping and actual fighting. First fighting medal since WWII.

[hobbit709]

3. Remember Grenada

where they handed ot more medals at the Pentagon than there were troops actually involved in the "invasion"