Who is More Worthy ?

Worried Squawks again - but not about petty complaints of blogging problems.

This time the complaint is about the cheesy quality of the Medal of Honor awarded our brave warriors who sacrificed their lives in an outstanding manner. See the post above about Cpl. Jason Dunham.

One day after Bush presented the Medal of Honor to the mother of the dead marine, Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif., ordered his aides to investigate how much gold was in the medal. His staff discovered that the medals were of brass covered with a thin veneer of gold. The Army's version cost $29.95 and the AirForce's design cost $75.

In contrast, the Congressional Medal of Honor, frequently awarded to dignitaries and celebrities (as well as to some military officers of high rank) is 90% gold and costs $30,000 ! The medal given "to Frank Sinatra is worth a thousand times more than the ones we give our heroes in uniform," Baca said. "Ain't that a shame?"

Contrary to popular belief, the Congressional Medal of Honor is NOT the same as the military Medal of Honor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Gold_Medal_of_Honor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Congressional_Gold_Medal_recipients

Many names on that list were worthy of an honor and I have no quarrell with them being so honored. I like Frank Sinatra's songs just fine but I find it doubtful that he was worthy of a $30,000 medal when a marine who sacrificed his life to save his buddies was worth only $29.95 !!

My squawk echos Rep. Baca's. Our military members who perform an outstanding act of bravery, usually sacrificing their own lives in so doing, deserve no less than those honored civilians. Was Frank Sinatra's singing more valuable than Cpl. Jason Dunham's heroism?

So what was the Pentagon's response to Rep. Baca's bill to require the Pentagon to put more real gold in the medals? The Pentagon opposes it because it would cost $2 million over the next five years. 1). they must expect to award a lot more Medals of Honor in the next five years! Do they expect the war to escalate THAT much? and 2). what is $2 million compared to the trillions being spent on this hellish, illegal war? Don't the soldiers who die in this war deserve a little bit of those trillions?

Since the inception of the Medal of Honor in the Civil War, it has been awarded only 3,459 times, and almost half were awarded to Civil War soldiers. More than half who received it did not survive the action for which it was awarded.
http://www.pbs.org/weta/americanvalor/history check out the sites on the sidebar.

Oh yes, the Pentagon also said that "the true beauty of the Medal of Honor is reflected in both the detailed heraldic design and the quality of the manufacturing process." Um-hummm! Doesn't the same hold true for those medals awarded to civilians? Give THEM $29.95 medals.

How does this grab you?

Source: Houston Chronicle, Sunday, January 21, 2007 pg A5