{"id":74285,"date":"2017-08-29T08:00:59","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=74285"},"modified":"2022-01-23T22:47:57","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T03:47:57","slug":"armand-hammer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=74285","title":{"rendered":"Major General Armand Martin Hammer"},"content":{"rendered":"

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AverageNCO found this obituary on a fellow by the name of Armand Martin Hammer<\/a> who passed away on June 19, 2017. The obit said this about Mr Hammer’s military career;<\/p>\n

Major General Hammer\u2019s military consisted of 10 years in the U.S. Marines, 22 years U.S. Army, and 3 years assigned to the Military Department of Tennessee for a total of 35 years. The General began his career as a private in the Marines, rose to the enlisted rank of Gunnery Sergeant, received a combat commission as a Second Lieutenant in Vietnam. He was awarded several decorations and commendations for service in Vietnam and while performing in every position from Private to Senior Non Commissioned Officer (NCO) to Commanding General. Primary service was in the infantry, Field Artillery, Adjutant General, Embassy Security, and Mechanized Supply specialties.<\/p>\n

His awards include Navy Cross, Bronze Star w\/v, Purple Hearts 3, Meritorious Service Medals 3, Air Medal, Army Commendation, Navy Commendation, Navy Achievement Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Combat Action Ribbon, Presidential Unit Citation, Navy Unit Commendation, USMC Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Republic of Vietnam Medal, Vietnam Cross Gallantry, Army Overseas Medal, Army Service Ribbon, and several medals and commendations awarded from the reserve components. Additionally, parachute wings, rifle and pistol expert badges. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Looking at his records from the National Personnel Records Center, they support just about everything the obituary says. He was a Gunnery Sergeant when he left the Marine Corps in 1969 after 10 years – there is no mention of a “combat commission” while he was in Vietnam. <\/p>\n

Judging by the timeline, he probably went to a National Guard OCS commissioning course to be an officer by the time he went to the Artillery Officers’ Basic Course in July 1970. Hammer was in the National Guard in January 1970 for 12 years and then into the active Army for 11 years, leaving as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Artillery. <\/p>\n

Somewhere along the line, I believe he altered his Marine Corps records. The NPRC says that he earned a Navy Cross, but there is no record of him actually being awarded that particular medal on any list. His records say that he earned a Purple Heart with two Oak Leaf clusters, an actual Purple Heart with additional awards would be a Purple Heart and two gold stars. I’m pretty sure that a Navy Unit Commendation Medal is a valor award that wouldn’t need a “V” device – that’s like putting a “V” device on a Silver Star. <\/p>\n

While he was in Vietnam in 1967, he was an aviation supply clerk in a Headquarters & Service Company of the 12th Marine Aviation Group which was at Chu Lai in 1967 when he was there. Although it’s not impossible that he was wounded three times and earned a pile of valor awards, it’s not likely. <\/p>\n

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The obit says that he was in the Tennessee State Guard (not the National Guard) and that’s probably where he was awarded the Major General rank. <\/p>\n

It looks like he was mobilized for Desert Storm and the Tennessee Guard sent the 196th Artillery Brigade to Desert Storm (they supported the XVIIIth Airborne Corps and the French allies) but I don’t see any awards in his records for Desert Storm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AverageNCO found this obituary on a fellow by the name of Armand Martin Hammer who passed … Major General Armand Martin Hammer<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,391],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phony-soldiers","category-valorvultures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74285","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=74285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/74293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}