Medal for restraint?
According to the Associated Press and the Army Times, some military leaders are contemplating a medal for using restraint in battle;
“The idea is consistent with our approach,” explained Air Force Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis. “Our young men and women display remarkable courage every day, including situations where they refrain from using lethal force, even at risk to themselves, in order to prevent possible harm to civilians. In some situations our forces face in Afghanistan, that restraint is an act of discipline and courage not much different than those seen in combat actions.”
Soldiers are often recognized for non-combat achievement with decorations such as their service’s commendation medal. But most of the highest U.S. military decorations are for valor in combat. A medal to recognize a conscious effort to avoid a combat action would be unique.
Only in the Age of Obama in our war against Human Caused Disasters could there be conceived a medal for avoiding combat.
Category: Military issues
DOUBLE FACEPALM. I never heard shit go, “BANG!” in anger. Where do I get my medal? This is just fucking incredible.
The Ribbon will be Pink with a center Yellow Stripe
Hmmmmmmmmmm, I won’t say what I really think.
If this goes through, I wonder how many will be awarded posthumously.
Who would actually be seen wearing one of these things?
Don’t laugh, Tim–back on the “site that shall not be named,” Jonn had a fairly lengthy discussion with a guy who was pushing for a Cold War Service medal. Most of the vets thought it was pretty damn dumb, but this guy kept pushing the issue, like another, “I was there” award actually meant something.
I think we need to go back to the theory of not being able to prove a negative.
I was in a number of situations where my patrol was shot at in Iraq, but we could not return fire, because we could not identify the shooter.
I don’t think we deserved a medal, but I don’t understand why tactical restraint is a bad thing.
What is needed is a medal for slapping the stupid out of politicians.
There are already pleanty of available awards in the service to recognize someone who is doing THEIR JOB. Too many in fact. WTF is the service coming to? If it weren’t for the current deployment tempo, I’d be afraid our readiness as a nation would slip to pre Reagan levels. Good Grief……..
Right, first we turn the Medal of Honor into the Medal of Posthumous Honor, and now we want to make a medal explicitly encouraging enemies to use human shields?
Why am I not suprised that this stupid ass medal idea is coming from the same branch that awards Bronze Stars to dudes flying UAV’s
This sounds like a good excuse to refuse to leave the FOB when you’re deployed. Come to think of it, they give BSMs to fobbit REMFs (no offense) anyway, right?
This sounds like a perfect opportunity for a TAH contest for creative awards. I suggest they ask those good at Photoshop or good artists to come up with “Courageous restraint” type award names and the appropriate pin, ribbon, badge, etc. for the award to give to those who didn’t do something. I am guessing there are a lot of creative minds out there that can come up with something.
It might even be news worthy and picked up by other conservative blogs, especially if there are awards for the propaganda media for all they didn’t do.