{"id":17445,"date":"2010-02-14T15:07:11","date_gmt":"2010-02-14T20:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=17445"},"modified":"2010-02-14T15:07:11","modified_gmt":"2010-02-14T20:07:11","slug":"the-ultimate-mark-of-an-infantryman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=17445","title":{"rendered":"The ultimate mark of an infantryman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/armyexpertinfantrybadge.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17446\" title=\"armyexpertinfantrybadge\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/armyexpertinfantrybadge.jpg\" alt=\"armyexpertinfantrybadge\" width=\"500\" height=\"87\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/armyexpertinfantrybadge.jpg 2209w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/armyexpertinfantrybadge-300x52.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/armyexpertinfantrybadge-1024x177.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I guess the Infantry School is worried because the EIB has lost it&#8217;s &#8220;luster&#8221; since the war against terror began almost nine years ago. From the Stars and Stripes;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the once- highly coveted badge has been overshadowed by its more glamorous battlefield counterpart, the Combat Infantry Badge.<\/p>\n<p>Leaders at the Army\u2019s infantry school in Fort Benning, Ga., hope that by revamping the test for the EIB, they can return some luster to the award.<\/p>\n<p>A story in the January issue of the Army\u2019s NCO Journal reminds soldiers \u201cthough mostly unseen during recent years of constant deployment, the simple blue rectangle and musket of the Expert Infantryman Badge has not gone away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It remains \u201cthe ultimate mark of an infantryman,\u201d the article reads.<\/p>\n<p>In five of the last eight years, the average number of EIBs awarded annually has dropped from pre-Sept. 11, 2001, levels, according to Army estimates. Between 1999 and 2001, approximately 6,500 soldiers earned the EIB per year, a number the Army hasn\u2019t seen since.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I guess the Infantry School is worried because the EIB has lost it&#8217;s &#8220;luster&#8221; since the &hellip; <a title=\"The ultimate mark of an infantryman\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=17445\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The ultimate mark of an infantryman<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}