About Protecting the Integrity of the Medal of Honor I was fortunate enough to serve with some mighty fine paratroopers and Special Forces men in combat during some extremely heavy fighting. I served during an era that produced many heroes and I am honored to have known many of them before and after they received the Distinguished Service Cross or the Medal of Honor. Because I had acquired so much first hand knowledge on our war heroes, I was able to write a series of books titled; The Fields of Honor, which covered our top five valor awards. During my research, I also uncovered a number of highly suspect Medals of Honor and I was personally involved in preventing a soldier from receiving a totally fake Medal of Honor. Because there are so many honors attached to our highest valor award, there are those who will do anything to receive one. Captain Otis Hedges Ashley III was a Special Forces lieutenant, who faked a combat action wherein he claimed he was captured by the NVA, cut his captors throats with his Gerber knife and escaped. He received a Silver Star for the faked fight and on his own faked statements to have the Silver Star upgraded to a Medal of Honor. He became the aide de camp to a famous Special Forces major general and thought he could blackmail the general—his attempt backfired on him and he was discharged. (Google him.) The Ashley Incident opened my eyes to how easy it was to fake a Medal of Honor. Based on my valor series of books and what I knew of Ashley—firsthand, I recommend to DOD to form an independent investigation team for all DSCs and MHs. My recommendation fell on deaf ears because it would prevent generals and admirals from influencing the awards. Sadly, the past and present method for awarding a Medal of Honor has remained the same; an individual is first recommend at troop level, the recommendation is passed up to the next level—usually battalion where a citation is written based on the written eye-witness statements (and usually embellished to meet criteria buz words and phrases). It is then passed on to brigade and division levels where it is rubber stamped WITHOUT any further verification or investigation (besides word-of-mouth) to CORPS and them DOD, where again no investigation is conducted—just rubber-stamping. So in effect, the only “investigations” that take place is at the level where the award is initially recommended—unit level. Sadly, it is along this paper route where basic combat action becomes exaggerated and added onto—NOT at the basic level. A Medal of Honor recipient once said, “The FIRST criteria for winning a Medal of Honor is you have to be LIKED…” What that does is remove a LOT of very brave men from receiving the award they deserve. A perfect example is the Battle of the Ia Drang in 1966. Three Medals of Honor were awarded. One, shortly after the fight was given to Lt Marm—a well-liked officer by LTC Moore. After the movie came out, two helicopter pilots were given the Medal of Honor; Freeman and Crandall—both again well-liked by LTC, now powerful Lieutenant General Moore. Ironically, during the same fight SP/4 Willard Parrish killed more than 100 NVA (!), stopped the enemy from attacking Moore’s battalion from the rear, thus saving hundreds of Moore’s soldiers from a sure defeat and Moore losing the fight. Parrish was given a Silver Star. Why no MH? Simple—giving Willard a MH would show Moore’s HUGE ERROR not protecting his rear. Presidents Clinton ad Obama handed out more than 100 belated Medals of Honor to minority group members based solely on perceived racism and failed to up-grade a REAL hero’s valor award to a Medal of Honor—SP/4 Willard Parrish—who killed more enemy and saved more American lives through his valor than ALL 100 of the upgraded racially motivated MHs put together. Without an INDEPENDENT Investigation Team at army or DOD level—our Medal of Honor remains a political award based on; friendships, unit and national politics and manipulation more than on valor and worse yet, the award system can be manipulated to present our Medal of Honor to men like; Captain MacGonagle, Lt “Bob” Kerrey and SSG Jon Cavaiani to cover for huge political blunders; USS LIBERTY INCIDENT, war crimes, treason and gross leadership errors. We need to remove politics from the Medal of Honor process and base it solely on VALOR!
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 09:07:27 +0000
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