{"id":35925,"date":"2013-06-03T08:15:47","date_gmt":"2013-06-03T12:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=35925"},"modified":"2015-05-04T12:55:47","modified_gmt":"2015-05-04T16:55:47","slug":"we-once-actually-had-an-official-red-badge-of-courage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=35925","title":{"rendered":"We Once Had an Official \u201cRed Badge of Courage\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’d guess many if not most TAH readers have read Steven Crane\u2019s Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage<\/span>.\u00a0 And I\u2019d also guess that virtually all TAH readers know a bit about the Purple Heart and its history.<\/p>\n

But like the main character in Crane\u2019s novel, with one minor change in history we easily could have ended up with a literal \u201cred badge of courage\u201d for wounded soldiers vice today\u2019s Purple Heart.\u00a0 In fact, the Army actually did have and award such a thing \u2013 for a period of roughly three months.<\/p>\n

Many TAH readers know that the Purple Heart was not the first decoration used by the Army to recognize combat wounds.\u00a0 The World War I Wound Chevron<\/a> preceded the Purple heart.\u00a0 It was a gold chevron worn on the lower right sleeve of the uniform where today’s Overseas Bars are worn, and was instituted in War Department General Orders 6 of January 12, 1918.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center>
Army Wound Chevron, 1918-1932<\/center>In fact, when the Purple Heart was instituted in 1932, conversion of a previously-awarded Wound Chevron to a Purple Heart was authorized but was not mandatory.\u00a0 Though regulations during World War II apparently proscribed wearing both, it was also not unknown for World War I veterans who had been wounded in both wars to ignore the prohibition and wear both their World War I Wound Chevron(s) and their World War II Purple Heart(s).<\/p>\n

But the Wound Chevron was not<\/span> the first decoration or badge used to recognize combat wounds.<\/p>\n

The Wound Chevron itself was preceded by a different but short-lived means of recognizing combat-wounded soldiers.\u00a0 The Army Wound Ribbon<\/a> was the original Army recognition for combat wounds.<\/p>\n

The Army Wound Ribbon was a ribbon-only award.\u00a0 It was also a very short-lived decoration \u2013 it was awarded for a period of roughly three months. It was created by order of the Secretary of War on September 6, 1917 and implemented by the War Department on October 12, 1917.\u00a0 It was formally rescinded on January 12, 1918, with the directive creating the Wound Chevron.<\/p>\n

The ribbon was scarlet with a rather wide white center stripe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Army Wound Ribbon, 1917<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t kidding with the title above.\u00a0 As you can see, for a short while the US Army really did have<\/em> a literal \u201cRed Badge of Courage\u201d for combat wounds.\u00a0 \u00a0And had the Army not taken that little \u201cside trip\u201d down Wound Chevron Way, my guess is that we\u2019d use that same scarlet and white ribbon today \u2013 almost certainly with an accompanying medal \u2013 instead of the Purple Heart to recognize individuals wounded in combat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hat tip to Sparks’ comment here<\/a> regarding the Red Badge of Courage<\/span> for prompting the research that led to me finding this little bit of history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’d guess many if not most TAH readers have read Steven Crane\u2019s Civil War novel The … We Once Had an Official \u201cRed Badge of Courage\u201d<\/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":[198,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-army","category-historical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35925","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=35925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}