{"id":35248,"date":"2013-04-23T09:32:30","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T13:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=35248"},"modified":"2013-04-23T10:31:44","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T14:31:44","slug":"the-iraq-medal-of-commitment-still-in-5-sided-asylum-limbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=35248","title":{"rendered":"The Iraq Medal of Commitment: Still in “5-Sided Asylum” Limbo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many of you may remember an article Jonn did some time ago on the proposal by the government of Iraq to award a an \u201cIraq Medal of Commitment<\/a>“.\u00a0 The new medal would go to those who served in Iraq between Mar 2003 and Dec 2011.<\/p>\n

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It seems as if DoD and the Government of Iraq are still doing the \u201celephant mating dance\u201d on this one.\u00a0 According to an article published about 3 weeks ago (1 Apr 2013) in the Army Times<\/i><\/a>,<\/p>\n

\u201cSince this is a foreign medal, traditionally the foreign government provides that medal to eligible members,\u201d Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a DoD spokesman, told Military Times. \u201cThe department greatly appreciates the desire of the government of Iraq to recognize our members\u2019 service. . . . The Department of Defense has not received the medals from the government of Iraq, as a result there are no medals available to approve or distribute at this time.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There\u2019s precedent both ways.\u00a0 During Vietnam, the US accepted multiple Vietnamese decorations and formally authorized them for wear by US troops; the same is true for decorations from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (Gulf War), Korea (Korean War), the Philippines\/France\/Belgium (World War II), the UN (various), and NATO (various).\u00a0 But during the mid-1970s, the US rejected the Republic of Korea Service Medal<\/a> when it was offered to US troops by South Korea.<\/p>\n

I know things take a while inside the 5-sided asylum.\u00a0 But you think almost 2 years would be enough for someone to decide either yea or nay.<\/p>\n

Then again, we\u2019re still waiting on a decision regarding approval\/downgrade\/disapproval of CPT Swenson\u2019s MOH for Gangjal.\u00a0 So maybe 2 years just isn\u2019t enough time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of you may remember an article Jonn did some time ago on the proposal by … The Iraq Medal of Commitment: Still in “5-Sided Asylum” Limbo<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues","category-veterans-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35248","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\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}