By Staff
At the Marines dinner in Dowagiac on Veterans Day, we heard the story of Jason Dunham, 22.
On April 14, 2004, several Marines were manning a checkpoint in western Iraq when an insurgent leaped from a car and clutched Dunham by the throat.
When the Iraqi dropped a live grenade during their struggle, the young Marine absorbed the blast with his body, saving his comrades' lives.
He is one of just two Medal of Honor recipients produced by three and a half years of combat.
President George W. Bush will present the award to Dunham's family at the White House Jan. 11.
It's certainly a message the Pentagon is not sending intentionally, but some have dubbed Iraq "The War Without Honors."
By contrast, there were 464 Medals of Honor – this country's highest military award for combat bravery – awarded during U.S. involvement in World War II.
As was reported prominently recently, the two conflicts have now lasted comparable lengths of time.
Contemporary number crunchers have concluded that if the government had been as stingy during WW II as it is now with its hardware, adjusting for the number of Americans serving, only 30 Medals of Honor would have been handed out during the war on fascism.
Or, consider service crosses, the second-highest honor.
There were 8,716 given out during WW II, but just 26 so far in Iraq, where U.S. troops continue to fight and die with valor almost 3,000 times.
What's changed? First, the process for getting medals.
Some commanders apparently reacted to what they perceived as medal inflation in recent conflicts, especially the Gulf War.
It's also thought there are simply fewer opportunities for heroics when your shadowy enemy sows the roadsides with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or rams you with a deadly car bomb.
Another disparity has been noted between individual branches of the military. The Army has issued 52,000 Bronze Star medals since 9/11, compared to 1,500 for Marines.
So, the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel is launching an inquiry into how Iraq medals have been awarded.
A Republican congressman from New York who chairs the panel, John McHugh, said, "We need to look into the criteria used and the timing. There are obvious inequities."
One theory is that the Army's large number is a product of political correctness, that senior officers subscribe to the notion that every soldier is doing a great job and shouldn't be singled out as better than another.
At the same time, it appears obvious that some commanders raised the bar because they felt such awards were given too freely in the past, such as a few Vietnam soldiers winning "air ribbons" just for taking flights into the country.
Some new, consistent guidelines across the services would appear to be in order.