Hi Folks, so i have a question about the Medal of Honour and it is based on this video that i will link below that i have been watching about Dan Daly. It was mentioned near the end of the video that the law was changed so that you can only be awarded the Medal of Honour once. I know that there are people who have been awarded it twice in the past but i am curious as to why a law was passed that forbids anyone being awarded the medal of Honour more than once, is this just a case of idiot politicians sticking their noses in where they are not welcome? i just canât get my head wrapped round this after watching the video below.
incidentally if you like short fast paced adult humour videos about famous military people then i recommend you watch more of the âFat Electricianâ videos.
From what I gather the guy in the video is a bit confused. The laws I can find are that you can no longer receive more than one MoH for the same action (at least 5 of the 19 double recipients received Navy and Army MoH for the same action), and you can only get on special pension for a MoH. I couldnât find a law stating you couldnât get more than one
Nineteen service members have been awarded the Medal of Honor twice.[191] The first double Medal of Honor recipient was Thomas Custer (brother of George Armstrong Custer) for two separate actions that took place several days apart during the American Civil War.[192]
Five âdouble recipientsâ were awarded both the Armyâs and Navyâs Medal of Honor for the same action, with all five of these occurrences taking place during World War I.[193] This was a consequence of the marine recipients serving under Army command, which had been reviewed by the Armyâs judge advocate general. According to the judge advocate general, the marines were âa party âof the Armyââ since they were detached for service under the Army by presidential directive, and thus were subject to the Armyâs decoration statutes for that time period.[194] No modern recipients have more than one medal because of laws passed for the Army in 1918, and for the Navy in 1919, which stipulated that âno more than one medal of honor . . . shall be issued to any one person,â although subsequent awards were authorized by issuance of bars or other devices in lieu of the medal itself.[195] The prohibition on double awards did not technically apply to the double recipients of WWI because they received Medals of Honor from different services, which meant the same medals were not duplicated and had independent statutory authority. Later, in 1927, President Coolidge issued an executive order that forbade issuing more than one federal decoration for the same action, a policy that continues through the present time.[178] The statutory bar on issuing multiple medals was finally repealed in the FY2014 defense bill,[196] at the request of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, meaning that recipients can now be issued more than one medal rather than simply receiving a device for subsequent awards. However, no more than one medal may be issued for the same action
I remember bing told that Bob Howard was put in tor the Medal of Honor two more times after he received his, for doing even more incredible stuff than what he originally got the medal for. He was denied to to the reasons above, although it seems they may not have understood the policy fully.
Colonel Howard was our Commandant during Phase I of SFQC, the last hard class, and singlehandedly saved my SF career.
From my visit to the USS Alabama Museum this week:
I just visited my Uncle in Alabama and discovered he was a Mustang as well. Made it to E7. Became a Warrant and made it to CWO3. When offered CWO4, but realizing that would be that highest rank he could attain, became an officer, and retired as a Lieutenant Commander. Not a bad career. And man, the stories he has and the places heâs been. My wife said heâs a lot like me, but Iâm nowhere near this guyâs league. Boots on the ground Navy Psyops in Vietnam, carriers (the Ranger, which had a pretty unfortunate accident) and a slew of other posts.
The video backs up what we all knew of him - he was bigger than life.
Itâs funny when he said âevery live person,â because he hesitated - I"m pretty sure he wanted to say âevery swinginâ dick.â
Iâm honored to have known him and to have been trained by him.
so am i right in think thay it would possible for someone be awarded the medal of honour say i the first gulf war and then go on to be awarded a second medal of honour in the second gulf war?
or would the original medal receive a âbarâ to denote the award being issued a second time to the same recipient?
The way I read it, since 2014 one can receive a second medal, not just a device such as a bar, or in the case of many awards, and oak leaf cluster. I suppose that means you would wear two ribbons if not wearing the actual medals. Thatâs somethng we donât do with our other awards, although the Russians seem to love it.
yeah i have been reading a lot of MACV-SOG books and there are so many who should have been been awarded the Medal of Honour but were denied due to petty people in high places.
IIRC West Moreland was former Airbourne and had an understanding of the importance of MACV-SOG and what they did.
No the person who did the most damage to MACV-SOG was Creighton (Cretin) Abrams who openly despised Special Forces. One former SOG member, John Stryker Meyer had a run in with him whilst at CCN and there has been other negative comments about Abrams in other SOG books which tell that he planned openly block one member from getting the Medal of Honour.
i never understood why a general who was in charge of armoured divisions in Europe was put in charge of a predominately infantry war in South East Asia.
incidentally Abrams was also responsible for banning tiger stripe fatigues and trying to ban boonie hats as well if i remember correctly.
that could be true, another reason might be that 5th Special Forces/MACV-SOG answered to the President of the United States and not Abrams in effect bypassing his authority/chain of command.
He tried to get them under his control by getting their senior officer on trumped up murder charges for eliminating a south vietnamese officer who was a double agent. There was a plan to bust this officer out of Long Binh jail and possibly introducing high velocity lead into Abrams diet.
Thankfully the high ranking special forces officer told his men to stand down and a little later documents found by a MACV-SOG team on a mission vindicated the officer and named the south vietnamese double agent.
you can read about it in Dale Hansonâs book âBorn Twiceâ feel free to skip the first 100 pages as it deals with his childhood but on page 245 Abrams clearly shows his hatred for Special Forces.
I do remember Abramsâ dislike of Special Forces. Topics like that are always talked about at SFA and MC meetings. We have a few of those old timers in the MC.
When I responded however, the freshest thing in my mind was something I had recently reread about Westmoreland: Artillery background, lacked the education of many of his peers, and had little actual command time, but more importantly very close minded in his thinking and had little interest in hearing the opinions of others. Very non SF in his thinking. Sound familiar? So naturally I thought of him first.
