That's him on the far left.......
Posted on 11/06/2014 11:30:29 AM PST by Fenhalls555
I'm familiar w/ this episode at the height of Pickett's Charge and it is remarkable courage.
How long did it take for Chamberlain to get his Medal of Honor for the defense of the Union Left Flank on Little Round Top?
There’s also been an effort to bestow the Medal of Honor on Dick Winters (Co E, 506 PIR, 101st Airborne, Band of Brothers) for the D-Day assault on German artillery at Brecourt Mannor. He was put in for it by his superiors, but SHAEF policy was that each division was limited to one Medal of Honor for Overlord combat operations.
“My sense is that such decisions need to be the decisions of the men who were there.”
If that is the case, wanna guess the odds that Did-you-know-I-was-in-Vietnam-Kerry would not have been awarded any “medals”. . .and rightfully so.
Chamberlain’s Medal of Honor was awarded in the 1880s (or maybe late 1870s), I believe. I am not convinced that it was deserved. Chamberlain was adept at self-promotion and sometimes seemed to have only a nodding acquaintance with the truth.
This story is simply amazing. That one human being — 22 years old, no less — could exhibit such courage!
Cushing also fought at Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. He was breveted a second lieutenant and a first lieutenant on the same day, and a major at Fredericksburg. Made brevet Lt. Col. at Gettysburg, where his command of the remaining battery on Cemetery Ridge turned back Pettigrew’s charge.
Simply amazing ...
I think it’s a good idea. In the post Vietnam era we have turned the Medal of Honor into an odd sort of cult. The criteria are often fully met today but the medal is not awarded anywhere near as often as it should be.
It gets mixed into political thinking of the Officers, the political correctness vetting of the recipient, and the popularity of the military action itself.
It needs to be awarded far more than it is. Read the citations on the ones issued from 1900 to Vietnam. THAT is what is was intended for. Now if you aren’t on a one way suicide mission to deliver an atom bomb to mars with a prewritten obituary, and you are exemplary in every area of your life and career, you don’t get it.
A lot of guys why had some rough edges have been cheated the recognition they deserve.
That’s the thing. It is still the same award. They have created lesser ones, but they have elevated the CMH into a something that cannot realistically be awarded.
We awarded 248 in Vietnam. Since Vietnam there have been a grand total of 18. This despite several amazingly brave actions above and beyond, with an expectation they wouldn’t survive, AND a continuous war for the last 13 years. It simple doesn’t fit into the career plans of the modern Officer corps to put their subordinates in for it. Somehow they see it as something to avoid getting involved in.
Remind America of slavery and the evil, Southern, Red States rebels.
That's a massive stretch. I doubt many Americans would make that connection. Rather, it's an easy opportunity for the administration to appear more military-friendly.
I suppose it's easier to give a medal nowadays to a Civil War hero than to a hero of the Mexican-American War or our wars with the Indians, but you have to be pretty far gone to hear about the story and automatically think "slavery" or "racism." Even in the South this story doesn't hurt Obama (or help him, either).
I agree. Utterly incredible.
I stood on the spot where his battery fought from at the high water mark. The fighting got close at hand shortly before a few of the Rebels breached the defenses. There is an order posted on a plaque there, reportedly quoting the artillery officer directing the fire. It was “ Triple canister at ten feet” or something similar. Canister is grapeshot, inch round ball bearings, fired point blank into the oncoming rebel ranks. It is hard to imagine how men could keep ranks. These American Civil War battles were pure butchery, brutal, and grotesque.
Besides, the vast majority of MoH handed out during the Civil War were NOT for combat..staff officers handed them out like candy at Halloween. If anything the ranks of those awarded the Medal during that time should be pruned.
Great they finally did it but disgusting that it is being awarded by an enemy of the US.
That's him on the far left.......
What because it was Wisconsin? Isn’t it odd the people whom live on the East Coast think the whole world revolves them. I have been to Vermont, not much there a liberal bastion.
So Alonzo Cushing is honored for something he did. Let see what great men came from Vermont - there were a group of soldiers in the American Revolution who did great things. How did the soldiers from Vermont serve in the Civil War.
Picketts Charge was the battle that too many Confederates sacrificed their lives for a lost endeavour But remember Gettysburg the carnage was massive. The battlefield was vast and the Union suffered massive casualities too.
Look up Picketts Charge so you have an understanding what the Gettysburg Battle was like.
Later in the Civil War there was a Colored force that served under the State of Massachusetts. The colored forces were decimitated by the Rebs because the color of their skin.
You ever hear of the colored pilots that served in WWII. They served with distinction and honor. The groups from Alabama were requested by bomber pilots for fighter escort, because they did not cut and run when the air war with the Germans got tough.
Kerry might have earned a medal for his taking out a VC rocketeer, but he didn’t earn a Purple Heart for:
* throwing a grenade into a VC rice cache and getting hit by some blowback. Stupid stood too close to the explosion.
* Reportedly fired an M-79 grenade-launcher at the enemy but it hit part of his boat, sending a wood or metal splinter into his forearm. Medic put a bandaid on it.
* Definitely didn’t get hurt by any enemy mine during the Bay Hap River operation when he was fleeing from the area in which another Swift Boat got blown up. His boat apparently hit either a sandbar or some other type of underwater obstacle (rock, log, etc). which threw him into the frame of his boat. He claimed it was from a mine.
See details in “Unfit for Command” )John O’Neill & Jerry Corsi, plus Scott Swett and myself, as well as 260 Swifties) and the followup book “To Set the Record Straight” (Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler).
Now Kerry did operate bravely in the face of the enemy so I will not take any legitimate actions away from him, but he did kill innocent civilians and covered it up.
The only awards he should have been qualified for were those offered by Hanoi to its friends, by the Sandinistas to their American lobbyists, and by the Hanoi Lobby for his devotion to a Communist victory in Indochina.
Amen.
I read a comment by Carlo D’Este that senior officers didn’t (don’t?) like the Medal of Honor going to junior officers and enlisted men. This is because a senior officer who spends his career in an office has to salute the corporal or sargeant who spent at least part of his career in combat.
That's part of what I love about studying the Civil War. It was men at their finest. And men at their worst. Like all wars, I suppose.
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