Category: Army News

Last year, we talked about Sergeant First Class Earl D. Plumlee, the hero of Forward Operating Base Ghazni. He stopped an insurgent assault on that base while braving enemy fire and treating the friendly victims of the assault. Plumlee was recommended by his commanders for the Medal of Honor, but the nomination died at the Army’s Human Resources Command and it was downgraded to a Silver Star Medal instead. Our buddy, Dan Lamothe at the Washington Post writes about what happened in the process that derailed the nomination;

In Afghanistan, the Medal of Honor recommendation received approval from senior officers that included then-Maj. Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, now believed to be the three-star commander of Joint Special Operations Command; then.-Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, now the four-star Army chief; and Dunford, now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Army Human Resources Command’s awards branch received the nomination in January 2014. The issue was taken up by the service’s Senior Army Decorations Board afterward, with two three-star generals and the top enlisted soldier in the service, now-retired Sergeant Major of the Army Raymond F. Chandler, serving as voting members. Two of them recommended the Silver Star, while another saw the Distinguished Service Cross, one notch below the Medal of Honor, as more appropriate. Separately, a previous unnamed Medal of Honor recipient serving as a nonvoting adviser to the board also recommended the Silver Star.

One of the voting members said his decision not to recommend the Medal of Honor came down in large part to one thing: Plumlee’s rank. Then a staff sergeant, Plumlee was expected to be a leader once the Taliban attacked rather than “a private who would be seized by the moment and take extremely valorous and courageous action,” the board member told the inspector general, according to the report.

“One’s a leader. One’s a Soldier,” the member said, according to the report. “And so when I looked at the circumstances and, although the battle was ferocious and unfortunately a couple members were killed, I just thought that it wasn’t a sufficient level for the Medal of Honor based off of the individual and the circumstances and that, I just felt there was an expectation of a leader who did a phenomenal job, that there was something more that [the nominee] needed to have done in order to, in my mind, to make a recommendation for a Medal of Honor.”

So, basically, Plumlee had too much rank to get the Medal of Honor (he was a staff sergeant at the time of the battle). So apparently, E-6s and above are limited to Bronze Stars and Silver Stars for valor medals, despite the level of valor an NCO displays. Good old Ray Chandler sticking up for the NCO Corps.

Bobo sends us the news that Lapthe C. Flora, a Vietnamese boat person in the 70s, has been promoted to Brigadier General in the Virginia National Guard.

Following the Communist capture of Saigon in 1975, Flora and his brothers fled the city to avoid being drafted in to the North Vietnamese military. He spent more than three years in the jungle, then fled by boat to Indonesia where he spent a year living in three separate refugee camps.

When he arrived in the U.S., he quickly learned English and finished his high school education in only three years. After high school Flora attended the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington where he earned a bachelor’s degree and commission in the U. S. Army Reserve in 1987. He later transferred to the Virginia Army National Guard where he served in every staff position within 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, including commander of the battalion.

He’s probably the first draft-dodger to be promoted to General, too. He just dodged the right draft.

You should read his speech at the link.

Chief Tango sends us a link from the Denver Post which reports that ten special forces soldier were rescued by helicopter while they were on a training mission climbing Longs Peak in the Rocky Mountain National Park.

Lt. Col. Sean Ryan, an Army spokesman, said the soldiers were on a routine training mission Thursday when the two soldiers became sick while climbing the 14,249-foot peak. No one was injured.

The soldiers, members of the 10th Special Forces Group that is stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, summited Longs Peak after two members of their group fell ill. Ryan said the group had to reach the summit in order to be flown off the mountain.

“It’s normal procedure for us,” Ryan said of high-altitude mountain climbing training.

The national park says rangers were summoned to help the soldiers late Thursday night. The soldiers were not planning to spend the night on the mountain, which is still under winter conditions.

The park service said one of the soldiers is a medic, who tended to his ill comrades.

“It’s important to recognize they were able to finish the climb this morning without assistance,” Mark Pita, the park’s chief ranger, told reporters at a news conference.

Thursday was a tough day to be training, I guess. At least this adventure ended well with no casualties.

Chief Tango sends us a link from Federal News Radio which reports that the new Army Secretary, Eric Fanning, announced plans to cut 3000 senior NCOs loose in an attempt to reduce the force to 450,000 by 2018;

Starting in October the retention control points for sergeant first class will be reduced from 26 years to 24.

Master sergeant control points will go from 29 years to 26 and sergeant major control points will decrease from 32 years to 30.

Last year the Army reduced its retention control points for promotable sergeants first class from 29 years to 26 and lowered tenure of promotable master sergeants from 32 to 29 years.

The soldiers are forced to retire or go to the reserve or National Guard components.

No one is asking me, but here’s my 2 cents; If I was going to reduce senior NCO strength, I’d start with putting NCOs on the street who had declined an assignment to a leadership slot. If they had been a Master Sergeant or a Sergeant Major for their whole career and never wore green tabs, cut ’em loose. They don’t want to be in the Army anyway – they only want a steady pay check, give ’em the chance. But that’s not the way it’s going to be done – they’d rather use some random process about time in service than an actual measure of excellence and proven performance.