Spencer Stone to get Purple Heart
Bobo sends us a link to a Military Times article which reports that Spencer Stone, also known as “Captain America” from the group of Americans who stopped the terrorist attack on the train from Amsterdam to Paris a few weeks ago, will be honored for the act at the Pentagon.
The ceremony will be presided over by Ashton Carter, the US Secretary of Defense while Spencer is awarded an Airman Medal and a Purple Heart.
Yeah, I know, how can you award an Airman Medal, which is typically for actions not involving combat with an armed enemy along with a Purple heart, which is awarded for wounds inflicted by an armed enemy? Military Times attempts to explain;
Last month, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said Stone was not eligible for other valor awards such as the Bronze Star with “V” or the Silver Star because his bravery was not during combat. But Welsh left open the possibility of awarding him the Purple Heart, if the attack was determined to be a terrorist attack. Welsh said that at the time the precedent set by awarding the Purple Heart victims of the 2009 Fort Hood attack could allow Stone to receive the same award.
Purple Hearts are typically awarded only for combat actions. But the 2015 Defense Authorization Act extended eligibility for the Purple Heart to service members killed or wounded in attacks by foreign terrorist organizations.
I still don’t understand, but there it is.
Category: Air Force
It took a decade to award Purple Hearts to the soldiers wounded in the Ft Hood attack and now, what a month and this one is approved.
Well, this is what happens when a policy changes. Leaders catch on and start enforcing it.
This happened on foreign soil that’s why. If this happened in the United States the Injustice Department head I can’t remember her name would be looking into civil rights charges against these men for pummeling the attacker into mush because he’s a Muslim.
WTF is wrong with the pentagon ? Not combat? the bastard had an AK and was going to shoot up the train, wtf do those pink panty bastards at the pentagon call combat?
Yeah, same question. Terrorism is what we’re fighting, and if hundreds of men and women can be awarded a BSV or higher fighting terrorists, jihadists, Taliban, etc, Airman Stone should be as well.
Maybe they’re just afraid of offending all the “refugees” or some shit like that.
He defeated a civilian terrorist, not a uniformed militant so he can only get a Purple Heart. You see it matters that he was wearing jeans at the time of his valorous action. Wait … what the hell did I just say?
In the movies they have people who make sure that the actors clothes, hair, shoes, the plates on the table, cars, and so forth make sense from scene to scene. I think it is called continuity. This administration needs to hire one of those guys for the lovely and talented Mr. Carter so that he doesn’t say X yesterday and Y today and then try to pretend that they are the same. Or something.
He gets the Airman Medal for doing what he did before he realized he was subduing a terrorist. He gets the Purple Heart because he was wounded fighting a terrorist. Um. Wait. He gets no combat awards because he wasn’t in a combat theater and didn’t realize he was fighting a terrorist, but he gets the Purple Heart because just before he was wounded, someone said “Terrorist!” in Belch of Frog and he then realized he was up against a terrorist… um. Wait. I’ll work on this some more.
You got and said before I could mention it but dam he can receive Airmen’s medal period for risking his life to save a life.
I had guy in our Unit pull two people out of a rolled over burning car. He did that came to work didn’t tell any one and the command found out when the media came calling. In the end wrote him up for a Navy and Marine Corps Medal he received it. So this is a NO brainer. Had two other guy’s pull a mother and a baby from car hanging off the cliff with a Navy all terrain fork lift. They received same thing.
The examples you cite are all examples of noncombat heroism. Like the Airmans’ and Soldiers’ Medals, by reg the NMCM is presented only for noncombat heroism. It’s thus inappropriate for any engagement involving combat with an armed enemy – and last time I checked, the Purple Heart is given only for wounds received as the result of wounds received due to enemy action (or from friendly fire wounds resulting from a bona fide effort to engage the enemy).
The DoD blew it bigtime on this one, IMO. The PH is legit; the AM/SM awarded to the two military members are IMO not. They should have received at a minimum the BSM w/V device (and there are indeed ways to make that happen – engaging in combat is indeed grounds for immediate entitlement to HFP/IDP if the right person wants to sign off on same).
Of course, the DoD also gave he folks who conducted Operation Eagle Claw and actually entered Iran . . . the Humanitarian Service Medal. So there’s ample historical precedent for DoD screwing over the troops, decoration wise, for political reasons.
While I think its BS and they should receive the BSM/V, award of the AM/SM does leave the door open for upgrade.
The complicating factor I see is that one person was a National Guardsman not on duty, making him ineligible for DFAS to pay the HF pay, even if it was requested. That might result in one person receiving a BS/V and the other something else. This may just be the solution to that potential inequity. .
HSM?
Makes mine kinda cheap compared to what they did.
I don’t know, hand-to-hand fighting with a jihadist armed with a Kalashnikov who is trying to kill you sounds pretty much like “combat” to me, but what do I know?
yup
Why? Political corrections. Gets a Purple Heart for being hurt by an enemy combatant, but doesn’t get a combat valor award because folk don’t want it to be “combat”…
“That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.
“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.
Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Well played, sir.
Don’t forget that aside from the Airman’s Medal and Purple Heart, Jimmy Kimmel also gave him a brand new convertible Camaro.
I am confused about the combat or non-combat issue, but I am not confused the Airman Medal and Purple Heart.
Well done Airman!
You deserve both!
Out!
That and more.
Pentagon broke out their newspeak dictionary again. I hear it is becoming the go to reference for the puzzle palace.
It boils down to the ass-clown infesting the White House and his lap dogs not wanting to admit that we are involved in a World Wide War against Islamic Terrorists.
Surprised the cocksuckers didnt try to pass it off as some sort of road rage.
Couldn’t be road rage. It’s a new one: railroad rage (RRR for short).
Glad he’s being awarded the Purple Heart – it was certainly earned, and right in the face of the enemy as it were. Well done Airman. Congrats. Always glad to see one of us Air Force types getting some credit.
Aw, hell!
He done good and he’s one of ours.
You don’t have to deploy to a combat zone to get a PH. Sometimes the combat zone comes to you.
yep, I was in Germany at a disco drunk off of my ass in the late 70’s…woke up with a PH attached to my hospital gown. my PH got me so many promotions, it was like my ticket to the top.