PRESIDENT AUTHORIZES TWO NEW MEDALS (2003)

A presidential executive order signed Wednesday authorizes the Department of Defense to create two new military medals for service in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).

The GWOT Expeditionary Medal will recognize servicemembers who participate in an expedition to combat terrorism on or after Sept. 11, 2001. This is limited to those who deploy as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. The GWOT Service Medal will recognize service in military operations to combat terrorism on or after Sept. 11, 2001. This is limited to Operation Noble Eagle and to those servicemembers who provide support to Operation Enduring Freedom from outside the area of eligibility designated for the GWOT Expeditionary Medal.

The medals were recommended by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "in response to our Nation's global efforts to suppress terrorism, and the significant contributions members of the Armed Forces bring to bear on the long-term resolution of this threat."

Specific eligibility for these medals will be established by DoD award policy. The combatant commander has the authority to award the medals for approved operations to units and personnel deployed within his or her theater. Each service department will prescribe the appropriate regulations for processing and wearing of the medals.

Members of the U.S. armed forces and Coast Guard are eligible for the medals to include Reserve and National Guard activated to support approved operations. Civilians, foreign nationals and foreign military are not eligible. It will take up to twelve months to produce and stock the medal in department supply systems.

Future authorization for these medals will be considered and approved by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff if the war on terrorism expands.

This Medal Recipient has passed
WWII Medal of Honor recipient Russell Dunham dies

ST. LOUIS — Russell Dunham never considered himself a hero that snowy day he charged a French hill during World War II, killing nine German soldiers and taking two others captive despite being wounded in the back. But he was fiercely proud of the Medal of Honor he received. Up until his death Monday of heart failure at the age of 89, the widower reveled in recounting his war days for anyone who’d listen, often at conventions, his stepdaughter said Thursday. “A lot of people come home, they don’t want to talk about it and they have nightmares or something like that. He talked about it all the time,” Annette Wilson, 60, said of Dunham, three days after his death at his home in the southwestern Illinois community of Godfrey. He’d moved there just weeks ago from nearby Jerseyville. To Dunham, Wilson insisted, doing what he did Jan. 8, 1945, near Kayserberg, France, was something he merely had to do. “’You either fight your way out or lose,’” Dunham often would say after becoming one of more than 3,400 Medal of Honor recipients since the decoration’s creation during the Civil War’s infancy, Wilson said. “’You fight for the guys in the foxhole with you.’ “None of them ever think of themselves as a hero, and he never did. He said, ‘You’re never proud of killing anybody, and you don’t win a medal — it’s not a contest. You just receive it. And you don’t receive it for how many you kill but for how many you save.’” The Illinois-born Dunham was a technical sergeant in the Army that storied, snowy afternoon in January 1945 on France’s Hill 616 when he “single-handedly assaulted three enemy machine guns,” according to the Medal of Honor’s official Web site. Wearing a white, camouflaging robe made of a mattress cover, Dunham toted a dozen carbine magazines and had 12 hand grenades snagged in his belt, suspenders and buttonholes when he charged the snow-covered hill under fire from two machinegunners and German riflemen, according to the profile. With his platoon 35 yards behind him, Dunham crawled 75 yards under heavy fire and got within 10 yards of one of the enemy machine guns when he jumped to his feet and charged forward, machine gun rounds ripping through his makeshift robe. A round from a rifle seared a 10-inch gash across his back, sending him spinning 15 yards down hill into the snow. Suffering excruciating pain from his wound, Dunham sprang up again, kicking aside a German grenade that landed beside him before it exploded just five yards away. He killed a German machinegunner and one of his assistants, emptying his rifle. But Dunham jumped into the machine gun nest and hauled out a third member of that enemy crew by the collar before attacking the second machine gun nest, ultimately killing that crew with two grenades he lobbed. Dunham had been an easy target — blood had soaked his coat red, making him stick out to enemy fire against the white landscape. All told, Dunham fired about 175 rounds of ammunition and used 11 grenades. “Dunham, despite a painful wound, spearheaded a spectacular and successful diversionary attack,” his profile on the Medal of Honor Web site reads. Dunham later recounted that he never considered the danger. “Once you get into battle, you forget your fears,” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1999. After the war, Dunham spent more than three decades working for the then-Veterans Administration before retiring in 1975. Additional survivors include a daughter, a stepson, three brothers, three sisters, three grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Services will be at 11 a.m. Friday at the Gent Funeral Home in Alton, with burial in Godfrey’s Valhalla Memorial Park.

1. Comments are not edited and don’t represent the views of the Daily Herald.
2. To understand what is and isn’t allowed please read our comments policy.
3. To report an inappropriate post click the icon beneath the comment.
Sort By: Oldest Newest1-4 of 4

posted by cpndodgee on Fri Apr 10, 2009 5:13 AM

Sleep Well, Faithful Servant. The Peace is Yours Eternally.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.