What was their justification? I thought the Bronze Star had to be awarded for gallantry in combat from the recommendation of a higher officer?
That’s kinda the way it used to be. Over the early 2000s it seems to have shifted.
My speculation is: command level leaders rarely if ever went outside the base and they got tired of seeing awards going to people doing jobs they didn’t want to do themselves. So they turned it into a participation trophy.
3 Likes
So true,
1 Like
That is what the V device on it is for now.
2 Likes
I personally know a guy who got wounded in an explosion, who then shot the attacker, gave aid to other wounded, and directed incoming forces where it came from. No one died except for the insurgent when the Platoon Daddy finished him and his buddy off.
He was an E4 - ARCOMM w/ V. The people who signed off on his award received BSM’s for their service in the TOC (they were also the only ones who never earned their CIB).
A lot of officers and senior enlisted propelled their careers with the blood of their subordinates.
1 Like
Sad, I remember a guy who got shot in face during riots at Bagram who didn’t get a PH because it was considered a riot and not act of war. A day later a guy cut his feet running out of barracks to bunker because of a rocket and got a PH.
1 Like
I honestly hope that nobody who has received this award takes any offense as I hold them in the highest regard.
My service was a while ago Army 82-85 USMC 88-92 and I am admittedly a bit out of touch with how things have gone in the service since Bush 1.
Are you telling me that the bronze star has become a participation award?
I had a friend in the Marines who was awarded one for during Desert Storm. He got it along with his Purple Heart.
Speaking of Purple Hearts, what’s crazy to me is that all the ones currently in inventory were made in 1945 in preparation for the eventually aborted invasion of the Japanese home islands. They were expecting casualties so heavy that they made an absolute ■■■■ ton of them. So they’ve been used ever since.
Also, every Victoria Cross awarded by Commonwealth countries is made of steel cut from the same two cannons that were captured all the way back in the Crimean War in the 1850s.
Back to Hegseth. I’m thinking he was awarded the Star for good reason. The WaPo article author is an asshat. Hegseth has been critical of Pentagon stooges like Austin. The Afghanistan withdrawal debacle, the proliferation of woke ideology in the US Military and the service academies. Hegseth saw it, lived it and wants to end it.
The US Military isn’t a political or social experiment. Numb nutz like Austin have turned what should be a wrecking crew of warriors whose mission is to kill people and break things into a nanny pamby bunch of profile soy boys and girls or those who want to identify as something else.
Austin is guilty of allowing this to happen and not standing for the soldiers, sailors, Marines and Airmen. He oversaw the resignations of good personnel for refusing to take the Wu Flu jab.
Austin and his ilk needed to toss their stars, chickens, leafs and bars on the table and resign long ago.
2 Likes
Me and just about everyone else who every deployed in the GWOT.
This isn’t our Grandpa’s Army. 
John Kerry got a couple of purple hearts for “paper cuts” didn’t he?
Put himself in for them.
2 Likes
■■■■ Kerry. Please don’t mention that elitist scum bag’s name anymore…
1 Like
No problem. 
