I'm all for acknowledging heroic acts... but his lights were out, and his body fell in a highly fortuitous way. The Navy Cross for his family and posterity is more than enough of a recognition.
Or do we have out MOH's like candy to anyone who dies nowadays?
For what it’s worth:
A Doctor once told me of a head-shot victim he helped treat during his residency. He said the victim walked into the ER.
He was dead by morning, but fully conscience when he checked himself in. It was later that the swelling did him in.
I don’t know what caliber the slug was in either case, but it’s not unheard of.
No, we don’t hand them out like candy. But we have turned them into a cult like award, with ridiculous standards. They are also more political than ever, and are only awarded to people who also pass a public relations vetting process.
It’s a disgrace that they do not award them as they should in the modern era. Half the MOH in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam would not have been awarded under today’s standards. THAT cheapens, not enhances, the award. Douglas Macarthur got one for heavens sake, for little more than sitting in Corregidor. He was a 1941 Petraeus, thats it.
And if you think all he did was fall in a lucky manner, and that his dead body had no intent whatsoever to do anything with that grenade, then why should he even get a Navy Cross?
NO matter how the British give awards, no matter what all the REMFs think, the men with him saw exactly what he did. But i guess they were all liars.
And as for experts who say people with a fatal headshots are 100% DRT, those shot people have a funny way of not doing what you think. The guy murdered on the sidewalk in NYC a few days ago is a classic example. He was shot in the back of the head. Witnesses said half his face was gone. They said he was still trying to speak for a few seconds afterwards.
Futhermore, the absence of just distribution of awards bumps down the line. The Navy Cross isn’t given thhe way it should be because it’s the new MOH. And Bronze and silver stars even used to mean something. Now thats what they give Jessica Lynch for not firing a round, hiding in the back seat in the fetal position, and getting captured.
Nobody does what they do for medals. But it’s a travesty to cheapen the lowest medals, and to be so stingy with the top ones that they are realistically never awarded.
The truth is that our goverment simply doesn’t want to give medals to anyone for fighting moslems. Also, they do not want MOH recipients walking around another 4 or 5 decades being a pain in the a$$.