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In one of his final actions, last month outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta instituted a new award that troops can earn, called the Distinguished Warfare Medal. (Warfare. Not “Peacefare” or “Defense” or some such euphemism. Panetta is not a man to mince words.) It’s formal criterion is that the act of the recipient “must have a direct impact, through any domain, on combat or other military operations,” take place after September 11 2001, and not itself be an “act of valor.” In practice this is widely understood to mean a drone strike or strikes (some think it could also be a cyber-attack) that affects normal warfare in a positive way.
So for instance, I suppose it could mean taking out the mourners at the funeral of an Islamist leader, under the logic that the children killed would not grow up to be terrorists, thereby reducing the ranks of the enemy that regular soldiers fight.
However, it seems Panetta erred in the eyes of the Guardians of Our Nation by ranking the new award higher than little items like the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. As is reviewed in an article by Amanda Terkel in HuffPo, the VFW immediately got on the case with a protest letter to incoming Secretary Chuck Hagel, as did 22 Senators, some of whom also introduced legislation against the ranking. According to a subsequent article, Hagel has now ordered a review of the issue, and production of the medals has been halted pending the outcome.
An interesting sidelight is that, according to the first HufPo article in some cases the medal would have to be given in secret, “because the actions taken by the recipients may be classified.”
Beyond that, words fail me.
83 Comments
To make it valid the center should be imitation chocolate.
I’d only heard that Panetta had been planning it, not that it was a fait accomplis. Whoosh; this is some sick stuff. But given that ‘lean and mean mechanized war’ is the plan of the future, he must have wanted to give those students enrolling in drone killing programs at Universities some fine incentives, eh?
But the Wiki said:
* Engaged in military operations against enemies of the United States.
* Engaged in operations in conflict against an opposing foreign force.
* While serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in operations with an opposing armed force where the United States is not a belligerent party.
And yes, it says that eligible extraordinary actions can be ‘operations may take place in air, sea, land, and cyberspace.
So that now includes domestically, of course, though the Wiki entry prolly doesn’t mention that.
But what the hell is the third category? And why do they mention that it can be awarded posthumously? They reckon the consoles might fight back one day?
Rec’d.
No, no, pistachio filling, bo. (This is the Mideast we’re talking about.)
you are soo bad!
I also wonder what happens if the drone pilot is CIA rather than DOD, wd. It’s hard to imagine that the good Mr. Brennan (he who only swears to uphold the constitution if it doesn’t include the Bill of Rights) would allow his minions to go unrewarded, but I suppose there could be some high-level rivalries involved here.
No, no, and no. The medal is carved from the bones of 4-year-old collaterally killed TERRORISTS.
What a difference a day makes. Hagel was standing by but is now running away from the Video War Game Medal. Of course, it is a medal for playing video games.
But the winners do not have a “need to know” who they are murdering.
And who else got a medal? Jill Kelley got the Pentagon’s 2nd highest Medal for Civilian Laisoning and Outstanding Party Service. From the Joint Chiefs of Staff, personally. Is this a great war or what?
WTF? A Purple Heart is for being wounded or killed in battle. And this medal is ranked higher? Hey, I just ran Norton, I can haz hero medal?
That’s interesting, F33. I wonder what changed his mind. Your Stars and Stripes article from yesterday even says the individual service chiefs agreed that the ranking was appropriate. As to Jill Kelley, LOL.
BTW, the Miami Herald article on this story (which fatster links to in today’s round-up) does cite one player whose criticism goes a bit further:
And the hollowed out center is tada: OPIUM (remember the photos of the GI’s guarding the opium fields during the harvest, when the medicine was oozing out of the scored seed pods?).
Yep. Back in the day lots of U.S. grunts got stoned on one thing or another to stomach napalming the Vietnamese.
LOLcat bit my ass, now all ur medals r belong 2 me.
One thing that irks about drone “warfare” is there is no punishment for “mistakes” if it is considered a mistake to kill 8 little girls collecting turds for cooking fires, for example. OOopsy!!!
If we have rules of some kind for when to strike, then drone strikes that would seem to totally violate these rules, like killing unarmed children who dare, DARE, to collect material for cooking fires would seem to be well .. somewhere between involuntary manslaughter and murder one, multiple counts. But no … there is no indication that anyone in our military or the White House gives a darn about “mistakes”. After all, those girl children, those dead baby girls .. why they could grow up to marry a boy and have sons who would eventually join the resistance .. whoopsy again, I mean insurgents.
The hypocrisy of our government is just boggling.
I heard about this medal last week or so on NPR and disliked it viscerally. I think I finally figured out why.
There was an old Star Trek about two civilizations at war for hundreds of years. When a theoretical strike indicated casualties of some level, the target government would notify the requisite number of people to show up and be beamed into nowhere. Kirk destroyed the computers to make them face the reality of the horror of war.
The moral issue to me about the drone war is that we risk nothing. Nobody even sweats or has to eat bad chow or march with a heavy pack, much less get shot at or wounded or killed. It’s not war, it’s not execution of condemned criminals, it’s sanitized murder. The lack of suffering on our part makes it too seductive a tool to be allowed.
The ranking of medals is important for pay and promotion purposes as well as recognition of service above and beyond the call of duty.
To rank this above a Purple Heart is an obscenity. May be if it is needed at all, rank it around a Good Conduct medal (which I miraculously was awarded). Or rank it like an “I was there” ribbon. That way, all the guys who turned wrenches or drove trucks can be recognized for their contributions.
I’ll support this award, but under one condition: it has to be awarded by Chuck E. Cheese.
Of course, it is a medal for playing video games.
But if you collect ten medals, you can exchange them for a giant stuffed panda wearing Mardi Gras beads. Just go over to the fat guy behind the counter with the waxed mustache and Panama hat.
“If we have rules of some kind…”
My guess for what it’s worth, ocp, is that we don’t. That would be why the administration works so hard to avoid disclosing them to the small number of people in Congress who’ve asked about it.
No medals, period. Medals are for valor and no matter what one may think of any particular conflict, there is no valor without risk to personal safety. Might as well give out medals for being good at Halo.
You raise several issue, sc, but let me focus on two. (I was a Star Trek fan, but it’s mostly been blotted out of my memory by the subsequent spinoffs.)
The fact that “we” risk nothing, meaning those who are actually perpetrating the war, is in one way the logical conclusion of the trend since WWII of the populace becoming progressively less involved in the government’s wars. In WWII we were all involved at home too, and in Vietnam there was a draft pulling ordinary citizens in. So now many of even the soldiers don’t get shot at. I think the PTB have figured out that that’s the way to have a free reign.
“The ranking of medals is important for pay and promotion purposes …”
I hadn’t thought of that, and it makes me wonder how the joint chiefs could have initially agreed to the ranking, as the Stars and Stripes article cited @ 10 above claims. Those people usually stick up for their troops (at least against each other).
It had better be ranked below the ASR or AFTR…! 8-(
Or some would trade them for baseball cards, no doubt.
How about a big red “D” in the middle of the Drone killer’s forehead?
Congrats, thread: We’re now front-paged!
We are told medals are given for valor, unusual courage, risking at least something for the good of the country.
This proves we give medals and call them heroes because they kill people. The valor garbage is just boiler plate.
Easy fix. Mr Brennan can come up with one of his own. But in his case there will be no doubt about it. It must be given in secret and never to be spoken of again. Not sure whether the recipient can bring it home or not, but perhaps they can say its an award for winning the softball tournament.
Ooh, you’re mean, rd.
X2
Now hold on there chief. We can get a tournament going to come up with the bestest medal evah.
That’s a good one, bd12.
The medal will be somewhat larger if you take out a funeral or a wedding party. s/
We are a very sick country.
Truly. Drone pilots eat Doritos you know. So they really can’t be carrying back packs out there in the rain. Not in the best shape you know.
“We are a very sick country.”
Hence the importance of Firedoglake.
I bet basic training for this job is all about video games, the kind you played in Moms basement.
I’m looking to write the manual. Gotta be worth millions.
Lockheed Martin is not happy about this.
The Brennan/Panetta/Kissinger/Negroponte Nun-killer Medal would be a jolly good one. But the name is too long.
and 34 and 35.
You are in rare form tonight, bd12; what is your snack food this evening?
Yes it is, hw1, even though you’ve left out Rummy, Dick, and Wolfie.
It’s the ranking you know. My heavens, man, they shoot back at you in war most of the time. Having a little hard stuff. Scotch.
I hereby rise up to nominate Praise TBoww! for his turgidly valorous and valorously turgid cyberdefense beyond the call of sanity of all wars waged by his Fiercely Historical Keyboard Commando in Chief, Obama.
Disgusted beyond words that any kind f medal whatsoever is being offered. How about re-naming it the “Distinguished Coward Keyboard Killer Medal”
My maternal grandfather was a rear admiral in the navy. He received two Navy crosses in WWII as the “commanding officer of a submarine, for the sinking of 12,000 tons of enemy shipping and the damaging of 27,500 tons of combatant ships.” I am only now delving into his history; my mom didn’t talk about it much. What I find is both fascinating and horrifying. Still, I know that he was in that submarine, in harm’s way along with however many people he was responsible for, and probably took it all to heart. I knew him long after that and he seemed like a decent guy, in spite of all the people he must have killed. I wonder what he’d think of the drone medals.
I’m jealous, bd12, since at the moment I have to take some pills that don’t interact well with C2H5OH (wish FDL would add the subscript option to B, I, and U).
BTW, when I was in the Army (yes, it happened) I made PFC three times within a year. Must have been a record.
X2 and LOL, but we have to think of a good medal for him, UCT1; any suggestions out there?
Sounds good to me, pfu.
whatcha gonna call it? Video Warfare for Dummies?
I’m really glad to hear from you, hfc, and that’s the kind of story we need. But I have one too: I had an uncle on a ship in WWII. He didn’t make it, and I remember the trauma in the family to this day (I was around 10, I think).
LOL, that’s got to be a record. What got you busted down to E2 (you don’t have to answer that)?
One of them was talking back to the platoon sergeant, but I don’t remember the other. Of course it was nothing new to me, having been kicked out of the Cub Scouts at an early age.
I remember one Army buddy who almost got busted down for long hair. Our platoon had to assemble for formation twice a week before going to work. My friend was growing his hair kind of long, and used some kind of greasy hair dressing to slick it back and make it less noticeable. The sergeant took a close look at him, removed his cap, and said “Rosenfeld, you need a haircut; even worse, you need an oil change !”
I am woefully (and purposely) ignorant of WWII; my DFH credentials make it very difficult for me think of my grandfather as heroic. People like your uncle died so that we could shoot “terrorists” from the safety of a bunker in Nevada? None of it makes any sense.
“We interrupt this program for breaking news.”
Fatster has now uncovered the fact that the Italian anti-mafia police have raided the offices of the Archbishop of Milan, one of the names often mentioned as possibly the next wearer of the shoes of the fisherman. Here’s the link.
Question: who is more screwed up, the U.S. of A. or the Catholic Church?
> having been kicked out of the Cub Scouts at an early age
Haw haw, me too! But you couldn’t tell, right?
LOL
Exactly, hfc.
Sure couldn’t, UCT1.
Folks, it’s now bedtime for yours truly, but don’t let that stop you. (We’re giving the Branch Davisians a good run for their money.)
The only positive outcome, of this farce, we can hope for is that some of the recipients of this Keyboard Killer medal decide to throw them over the White House fence in disgust at what they were ordered to do.
The medal needs a yellow stripe.
One of the more important reasons “why” for the medal is the onset of real and serious PTSD for drone operators who all too often do an assessment of a strike and realize that, while under orders, they’ve just once again splashed about 30 innocent people all over the landscape.
Of course such incidents are nothing new in warfare but it still can be real trauma for the personnel involved, and can have serious negative aftereffects.
And one of the indirect ways the military has traditionally dealt with such trauma is by awards.
… of course with drone operations you have the small issue of the sheer frequency of such events and it doesn’t make this particular implementation of this particular medal any less of a bad idea.
But hopefully you can now understand better the insistence by the drone high brass on rewarding their people with something meaningful for going through what they do.
And it’s only going to get worse.
Good morning.
Thanks for the profound insights of wow @ 57 and fwb @ 58.
zk @ 59, I frankly think the excuse you offer (if half-heartedly) is akin to the “I was only following orders” gambit that failed at Nurenburg. There is no military draft anymore, so people don’t have to put themselves in a position where they are ordered to murder children and, poor dears, suffer PTSD as a result.
Or rank it like an “I was there” ribbon.
You’re not talking about the vaunted National Defense ribbon, are you? Or maybe the “You sent me over here away from my friends and family – give me SOMETHING for it” ribbon – the Armed Forces Expeditionary Ribbon.
You might want to check your irony meter and read what I wrote again…
Now that you mention it, AG, a “ribbon” presupposes an “award” or “medal.” The latter, like the example the editor put at the top of this post, is something you don’t wear, at least not every day, and is typically kept in case that you show to visitors. The ribbon or, usually ribbons, is/are shown above the left breast pocket of the everyday uniform. The Marine general in dress uniform in this picture has his medals on his left and his ribbons on his right.
Looking back over this thread, I see that I somehow missed Margaret’s comparison with video games @ 19 (excellent point, since the
murdererhero sits at a console), and CTuttle @21, who offers two acronyms that I can’t place (he’s five hours behind Eastern time so we probably won’t get help from him for a while), but thanks CTut.Right, zk, irony is not my strong point this early in the day. But let’s leave it as a caution to anyone who does take such an excuse seriously.
ASR = Army Service Ribbon
AFTR = Air Force Training Ribbon
Both are about the lowest level of award precedence.
OK, got it, and thereby CTut’s point. Thanks, d01.
Those poor drone operators. If only they could say “NO.”
Ah, but refusing such commendations is not often considered to be a career-enhancing move.
Good afternoon, UCT1 (unless you’re west of the eastern time zone), good to know you’re up and around.
A nice thought, but I’m still waiting for the name of the medal you’re giving to TBogg. Maybe we should have a contest. (First prize could be, say, the chance to edit his “a somewhat popular blogger” line in FDL’s Wikipedia entry.)
Killing a career vs a career in killing… Good point.
The Purple Liplock? Awarded to those who give the last full measure of their devotion to kissing Presidential ass no matter the cost in innocent human life.
That’s it! Absolutely.
Let’s give varsity letters to bench sitters and Monday morning quarterbacks. Any of them could tell the coach how much better they would have played if they had actually been on the field. Let’s give full ROTC scholarships to the all day gaming crowd. They are tomorrow’s Medal of Honor recipients.
Let’s staff San Diego’s beaches with pool-qualified lifeguards. Skimming the pool, picking out toddlers and handling an irate parent can’t be all that different from swimming a half mile through surf, open water and fiberglass or cartilaginous fins, or talking down a sun-buzzed surfer.
Yes, let’s give medals to computer operators sitting comfortably in front of video screens, manipulating feedback-free joysticks in air-conditioned rooms. They operate in the dangerous environment, surrounded by brass and intel geeks for whom redirecting blame is a day’s work. They wrestle their controls in the adrenaline-free one-g zone, at standard temperature and pressure. No worries about adverse weather, flight control or engine failure, or getting their butts as well as their model airplanes back to base. No worries about being shot down by unfriendlies. No need to survive SERE training; they just have to survive such things as the hazing and brutality the Air Force confuses with teaching their employees to be all they can be.
This cynical move will reward the drone industry, its backers, suppliers, lobbyists and dependent government players. I don’t expect real air crews will think much of it. Neither should the citizens who will end up paying for it.
Sanctify accountability-free, risk-free, backroom killing. All in a day’s work, really. Then again, since Mr. Obama refuses to admit he has drone programs here and abroad, there isn’t anyone to reward.
Humor aside, soldiers are supposed to be able to kill. That’s their job description.
Preferably, they should target enemy soldiers who pose a direct threat.
And such soldiers are still needed. Nothing’s going to change that for a long time to come.
The core of the current problem is that the drones under discussion are literally being used as weapons of empire and the drone operators are a de facto occupying army.
Garrison duty within commuting distance of home.
No enemy soldiers to fight.
Only remotely defined “suspect persons” to target.
It is not going to end well.
No fake awards, no medals, no ribbons for these keyboard “warriors.” These cowards deserve nothing! The only risk they face is choking on Cheetos. Maybe an orange patch to go below their division patch on their sleeve.
Great comment, eoh! (But are you maybe an infiltrator from the VFW?) I would only say that, as to the taxpayers, they’ll probably be easily distracted by happenings like the white smoke that is filling up the TV screens as we speak.
As to @ 74, someone up above suggested that secret awards can always be passed off as coming from some sports tournament.
I am a Very Fine Worker, thanks very much.
I agree that drone jockeys have a job to do, that it requires certain refined skills, and that the fate of others may be at risk in how well they do it. But they are not putting their lives on the line, the usual prerequisite for serious medals. They risk haemorrhoids and being late for dinner.
Elevating their virtual fighting to the same level as the real thing is an attempt to sanctify, to normalize their work. It is an attempt to elevate the status of the political geeks who give it to them. In Secret. With No Accountability. The American public pays the consequences. Drone work is not secret to the communities targeted by it.
I reject this Kobayashi Maru scenario. War and killing are not necessary. Standing armies are not necessary. External enemies are not necessary. Empire is not necessary. The 1% and their goals are not necessary.
Fine, pfu, but I vote for yellow instead of orange.
Well, at least you’re not a Voracious Feral Werewolf.
and to UCT1 @ 80
I’m with the latter on that.