{"id":56953,"date":"2014-12-09T08:55:26","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T13:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=56953"},"modified":"2014-12-08T17:08:38","modified_gmt":"2014-12-08T22:08:38","slug":"army-specialist-five-karen-irene-offutt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=56953","title":{"rendered":"Army Specialist Five Karen Irene Offutt"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

I learn an awful lot from blogging. When I was a young NCO, I learned that the best way to learn how accomplish a task is to teach it, because of the stuff you learn from preparing your classes. So, it is with blogging, I suppose. Doug Sterner emailed us another phony yesterday who happened to be a female and she claimed that she had earned a Soldiers Medal. I mentioned to Doug that I had never heard of a female who had earned a Soldiers Medal (for the uninitiated, a Soldiers Medal is awarded for heroism while not engaged with an armed enemy). Doug straightened me right out and sent me this list of women who had been awarded the Soldiers Medal;<\/p>\n

Stephenson, Orah D.\tWorld War II
\nDonaldson, John J. World War II
\nAtwood, Pauline A.\tVietnam War
\nRoberts, Laurel V.\tVietnam War
\nSperry, Deborah R.\tVietnam War
\nPicard, Carol Y.\tVietnam War
\nBolling, Wilma F.\tVietnam War
\nWills, Marilyn\t War on Terrorism
\nCruz-Cortes, Roxane\tWar on Terrorism <\/p>\n

But, there was one missing, SP5 Karen Irene Offutt. Her story<\/a>;<\/p>\n

“We were on the second floor of an old hotel. Across the alleyway were a series of Vietnamese shanties, made of beer cans and thatch roofs. A bamboo-type awning extended across all the houses. That awning was on fire, and [Vietnamese] were running around trying to salvage their things. I ran down and pulled some women and children out. I was barefoot and burned my feet. I don’t remember much. Eventually, the fire department showed up.”<\/p>\n

Offutt doesn’t feel she did anything especially heroic, and remembers with more clarity that she wrote home about the incident, and her mother organized churches and neighbors to collect clothes and send them to Vietnam for the children. Offutt was surprised when she was called to MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) and informed that the Hamlet Chief had written a letter commending her for saving numerous lives, and that she was to be awarded the Soldier’s Medal. Then, on 24 January, officials told Offutt that women were not awarded Soldier’s Medals; instead, Offutt was presented with a Certificate of Achievement for Heroic Action. “I wasn’t really upset at not getting it [the Soldier’s Medal] because I did what anybody should have done anyway.”<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

On April 7, 2001, at Medard Park, east of Tampa, Florida, Karen Offutt was finally presented the Soldier’s Medal she had earned thirty-one years earlier in Vietnam. A guest speaker at The Moving Wall, she was presented the medal in a surprise ceremony by a representative of Congressman Mike Bilirakis (R-Fla)<\/p>\n

The official citation reads:<\/p>\n

(Then) Specialist Five, United States Army for heroism not involving actual conflict with an armed enemy: Specialist Karen I. Offutt, Women’s Army Corps, United States Army, assigned to Headquarters Military Assistance Command Vietnam, J47, distinguished herself by heroic action on 24 January 1970 while in an off-duty status.<\/p>\n

Observing a fire in Vietnamese dwellings near her quarters, she hurried to the scene to provide assistance. Without regard for her personal safety and in great danger of serious injury or death from smoke, flames, and falling debris, she assisted in rescuing several adults and children from the burning structures. Without protective clothing or shoes she repeatedly entered the buildings to lead children that had reentered their homes to safety. She continued to assist the Vietnamese residents in removing personal property and livestock, although danger increased until fire-fighting equipment and personnel arrived. Specialist Five Offutt’s heroic action reflects great credit on herself, the United States Army, and the United States mission in Vietnam.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I learn an awful lot from blogging. When I was a young NCO, I learned that … Army Specialist Five Karen Irene Offutt<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56953","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\/56953","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=56953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}