Valor Friday

Earlier this week, Ed directed our attention to the valorous actions of Staff Sergeant Brett Meil (USMC). If he’d done what he did in combat, he’d more than likely be given a Medal of Honor. As I’ve discussed before, that’s about the only surefire way to get one, but your odds of living to receive the award are decidedly slim.

In the 21st Century conflicts, 28 Medals of Honor have been awarded. For actions in Iraq, seven have been earned. A full three were for jumping on grenades and one was for using his body to stop the modern radical Islamic tactic of a suicide vest. All of these awards were posthumous. For the longer War in Afghanistan, two of the 20 awards from that conflict were for wrestling a live enemy grenade and one was for fighting with a suicide vest wearing terrorist. Interestingly, all three awards were to living recipients.

Here are some others I’ve written about previously;

• Anoka County Marines
• William Perkins, the only combat photographer MoH
• Kenneth Olson, with mentions of two others who jumped on grenades
• Elmer Burr
• William Charette
• Rodney Davis
• Jack Lucas, one of my favorite stories of valor. Survives jumping on two grenades (at age 17), then survives jumping out of a plane with no parachute.

I sure hope the Navy Department does the right thing and gives SSgt Meil an appropriate award. The Navy and Marine Corps Medal (equivalent of a Soldier’s or Airman’s Medal) is about the only option. In the British (and Commonwealth countries modeled on them) Honours system, they have a higher ranked award. Where the Navy and Marine Corps Medal is the non-combat equivalent of a Navy Cross, the British George Cross is the non-combat equivalent of the Victoria Cross (the highest honor in Britain). The George Cross ranks with, but just below the Victoria Cross. Since the start of World War II, 181 men have received 182 VCs, 416 GCs were awarded (most to civilians for heroism during The Blitz). I think we need something analogous to the MoH, but for non-combat bravery. We’ve got awards for everything else under the sun. If you’re in the Air Force and you deploy to the sandbox, you’ll come out looking like Zhukov.

Category: Historical, Valor