{"id":55210,"date":"2014-09-16T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T13:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=55210"},"modified":"2014-09-15T19:03:54","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T23:03:54","slug":"55210","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=55210","title":{"rendered":"DoD stingy with Medal of Honor?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?attachment_id=47136\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-47136\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC_0010-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"DSC_0010\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-47136\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC_0010-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DSC_0010-500x333.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thelead.blogs.cnn.com\/2014\/09\/15\/vets-of-iraq-afghanistan-being-short-changed-on-the-medal-of-honor\/\">CNN<\/a>&#8216;s Jake Tapper asks why so few Medals of Honor have been awarded during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars as compared to our much shorter involvement in previous wars. Leading the charge in Congress is Iraq veteran Duncan Hunter;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>That reasoning drew ire from veterans like Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These are men rushing the enemy, looking them in the eye, and sometimes finishing them off with their knives, with their helmets, with empty rifles used as clubs. If that&#8217;s not close-quarter combat, I don&#8217;t know what is,&#8221; Hunter said in 2011. &#8220;Not recognizing them for what they&#8217;re doing is a travesty.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Our buddy, Doug Sterner, an expert on the awards system;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Another theory comes from Vietnam veteran and historian Doug Sterner.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have people at the top who are reluctant to admit that we have a broken awards system and fix it,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The current generation of fighters is being denied recognition not because their actions are any less heroic, but because their leaders don&#8217;t know a medal contender when they see one, Sterner says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe width='416' height='234' src='http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/video\/api\/embed.html#\/video\/us\/2014\/09\/15\/lead-pkg-tapper-fewer-medal-of-honor-recipients.cnn' frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>My personal cause for the Medal of Honor is Sergeant First Class Alwyn  Cashe, we were both Bradley platoon sergeants, but he is credited with saving the lives of six of his soldiers while he was on fire and under fire from the enemy. He repeatedly rushed into his burning Bradley and dragged his troops from it. From the <a href=\"http:\/\/atwar.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/09\/23\/medal-of-honor-nominee-picks-up-a-supporter\/?_php=true&#038;_type=blogs&#038;_r=0\">New York Times<\/a>;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\tAccording to the narrative that accompanied [SFC Cashe&#8217;s Silver Star Medal], the Bradley was engulfed in flames and Sergeant Cashe, drenched in fuel that had been spewed by the explosion, pulled himself out of the gunner\u2019s hatch and helped the driver escape. The narrative describes what happened next:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWithout regard for his personal safety, S.F.C. Cashe rushed to the back of the vehicle, reached into the hot flames and started pulling out his soldiers. The flames gripped his fuel-soaked uniform. Flames quickly spread all over his body. Despite the terrible pain, [SFC} Cashe placed the injured soldier on the ground and returned to burning vehicle (sic) to retrieve another burning soldier; all the while he was still on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The narrative said that Sergeant Cashe\u2019s actions helped save the lives of six soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>After his death, Sergeant Cashe\u2019s commanding officers learned that his platoon had come under enemy fire while the sergeant was rescuing his fellow soldiers \u2014 and as a result they petitioned for his Silver Star, the military\u2019s third-highest valor award, to be upgraded to a Medal of Honor. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>SFC Cashe succumbed to his injuries after a final reunion with his family at Fort Sam Houston. And then we discovered that his headstone at Arlington <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=26800\">listed the wrong medal<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There are only four Medals of Honor for Iraq, SFC Cashe needs to be the fifth.<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?attachment_id=55212\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-55212\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Alwyn-Cashe-256x300.jpg\" alt=\"Alwyn Cashe\" width=\"256\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-55212\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CNN&#8216;s Jake Tapper asks why so few Medals of Honor have been awarded during the Iraq &hellip; <a title=\"DoD stingy with Medal of Honor?\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=55210\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">DoD stingy with Medal of Honor?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55210","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=55210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}