The Purple Heart is an award given to soldiers wounded in action since April 5th, 1917. It shouldn’t be hard to determine whether or not someone should receive a purple heart.
Then why did it take 13 years, 4 months, 1 week, and 1 day to get a soldier his purple heart?
Lazy Reporting for a Purple Heart Awarded to Soldier
In the Army.mil article, it states that (retired) Specialist Daniel Horner was wounded from an IED when he was a gunner on a convoy routing through Mosul. The article doesn’t state many important things:
- Why did it take over 13 years to get this guy his purple heart?
- Is he medically retired, or did he somehow manage to go 20 years and only achieve the rank of Specialist?
- What was the injury he received?
- What was his MOS (Military Occupational Specialty, or job)?
- What was his unit?
Let’s take a little closer look at each of these questions I have:
13 Years Late for a Purple Heart?
A Purple Heart should be pretty cut and dry…anyone injured in combat and a couple other scenarios get it. If someone deserves a Purple Heart, it shouldn’t take much to determine whether or not that person deserves it.
The article just mentions he received an injury from an IED during a convoy mission. This happened on June 30th, 2007.
I know the military and government work horrendously slow most of the time, but this seems to be fishy. On top of this, this is a veteran receiving an award for injury during an armed conflict on the War on Terror. This kind of thing usually doesn’t get any slow track.
A Retired Specialist?
Maybe I shouldn’t be one questioning a retired Specialist.
Specialist, a.k.a. E-4 or SPC, is automatically given to anyone in the Army that has served for 24 months unless the soldier did something dumb to get in trouble. I get some flak because in my 6 years of service, I only made it to Specialist, but I have my reasons!
If the Specialist in the article was medically retired, perhaps that should be clarified. I mean, I know I didn’t want to advance because I knew it wasn’t going to be my life. After twenty years, though, someone should have some sort of desire to better himself.
What Was the Injury He Received?
This is something that the general public must not be allowed to know as general information. With the extreme majority of any type of injury or negative case from the military, a few basic facts are released and we’re told there is an “ongoing investigation.”
Purple Hearts shouldn’t be a second thought. These should be treated as extremely serious awards.
If you ask me, there should even be consideration of different levels of the Purple Heart. The Army has different awards for different levels of accomplishment (supposedly). I got an Army Accommodation Medal (ARCOM) for finding mortar fuses. I was walking in a field and spotted them, and they weren’t hidden, so anyone with eyesight would’ve seen them.
But, I got the ARCOM. I didn’t get a Silver Star or a Meritorious Service Medal (MSM). If all this Specialist received was a piece of shrapnel across his forearm and received what could have been the equivalent of a burn from the grill of an oven, should he receive the same award as someone like my squad leader from my first deployment who had to have the lower half of his arm amputated?
I suppose the only real reason to not disclose injury information is because it is a medical issue.
What Was His MOS (Military Occupational Specialty)?
“Gunner” isn’t an MOS, or at least none I’ve ever heard of. It’s weird to me that his MOS wasn’t published.
It doesn’t really matter what his MOS was. A soldier is a soldier, an injury is an injury.
But think about how many times you’ve seen an MOS not mentioned in the article? There is a lot of pride in soldiers’ MOS’s, especially within the combat arms.
What Was His Unit?
The only unit the article mentions is the 130th Field Artillery Battalion, but that is only in naming distinguished guest Lt. Col. Mike McCoy. Horner’s unit is not named.
I haven’t really been reading into military media with a critical eye until recently, but the unit is generally a huge part of anything published. All we really know for sure is that the Specialist was in the Kansas National Guard.
It seems odd this wasn’t in the article.
Chicken Hawks Will Love This Purple Heart Recipient Anyways
The biggest concern is the 13 year gap between the IED and giving him the Purple Heart. Was someone holding up the paperwork? Did the Specialist not care about it until recently?
It may sound like a broken record on The Hawk Bawk, but Chicken Hawks will look at a Purple Heart without question and view its recipient as an amazing, undoubtedly amazing human. I’m not sure how that is possible. Every person in the military is the best of America? If that was the case, wouldn’t military service be pushed well over college on young kids?
Awards in the military (at least in the Army from my experience) are handed out like candy. They make a soldier look more accomplished than the soldier probably is.
The “This soldier was injured/killed in war, that means we should treat him better than everyone else!” mentality demeans the importance of those who were lucky to not have been hurt or killed.
However, ultimately, Chicken Hawks will still treat every soldier as a beacon of absolute patriotism. Knowing a Purple Heart awarded to a soldier 13 years later must drive them nuts!
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