(Via Milinet)

European Stars and Stripes
June 4, 2000
Pg. 3

Awarding Of Bronze Stars Questioned

Combat medal given to troops not entering combat zone

(First of two parts)

By Jon R. Anderson, Stars and Stripes

This time last year, an Air Force lieutenant colonel was leading
a
team of mechanics and maintenance crews at Whiteman Air Force
Base,
Mo., making sure the B-2 bomber was a regular player in the air
campaign against Yugoslavia some 5,000 miles away. For his
efforts,
he is among the nearly 200 Air Force members to receive the
nation's
fourth-highest combat award, the Bronze Star. And like the
lieutenant
colonel, the majority of those who received the coveted awards
did so
for actions far from the combat zone.

Last year's Operation Allied Force contained many firsts. It was
NATO's first all-out military campaign and it also was the first
won
by air power alone. And it was the first campaign fought
predominantly -from one side, at least -from afar. So far, in
fact,
that it has radically changed the way troops are being
recognized for
their wartime contributions. For the first time in U.S. history,
scores of troops who never went near the combat zone are being
given
Bronze Star combat medals, while -perhaps ironically - most of
the
ground troops closest to the fighting have gotten none.

Meaningful decoration

For many civilians, awards like the Bronze Star Medal, with its
red,
white and blue ribbon, might seem like little more than colorful
ornaments to decorate fancy uniforms. But for those who wear
those
uniforms, medals -especially combat awards -are not only a
source of
professional pride and boosted morale, but often are linked to
promotions and key career-building
assignments.

Such was evidenced by the storm of controversy that erupted when
three 1st Infantry Division soldiers captured in Macedonia -and
beaten before their release a month later -were awarded the
Purple
Heart, the nation's oldest award. The Purple Heart is reserved
for
those wounded in combat and is listed below the Bronze Star in
the
military's "order of precedence" chart.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Boorda committed suicide in
1996
only hours after learning he was being investigated by Newsweek
for
improperly wearing combat medals from Vietnam. Make no mistake,
experts say, medals are important to those in uniform.

"The Bronze Star was initially created for combat-fighting men,"
said
Frank Foster, author of the Complete Guide to All U.S. Military
Medals: 1939 to Present. "It seems awfully strange that people
far
from the combat zone would qualify for it."

Jim Thompson, author of Decorations, Medals, Badges and Insignia
of
U.S. Marine Corps and the soon-to-be-released book by the same
title
for the Navy, laughed out loud when called for comment.

"I guess I'm surprised and a little alarmed that our decorations
-particularly a combat decoration -are being given out this way.
"The
message this sends is that the medal has been diluted," he said.
"They've stretched it too far."

Engaging the enemy

The criteria for the Bronze Star medal is specific. According to
Defense Department regulations, the medal is to be awarded to
servicemembers "engaged in an action against an enemy of the
United
States" or an "opposing foreign force." What qualified as the
combat
zone for Operation Allied Force was equally specific. According
to
President Clinton's executive order signed April 13, the combat
zone
was defined as Yugoslavia, Albania, the Adriatic Sea and the
northern
Ionian Sea. It also included the airspace above these areas,
thus
covering the aircrews of long-range bombers and naval aircraft
flying
missions into the combat
zone. Servicemembers in Macedonia and Bosnia already were
considered
inside the combat zone because of earlier designations.
According to
the medal's requirements, the Bronze Star only can be awarded
for
action on the ground. The Air Medal covers heroism in flight.

The citation for the lieutenant colonel in Missouri, like most,
reads
that he earned the medal for "meritorious achievement while
engaged
in ground operations against an opposing armed force." In
Missouri.
And he was not alone. At least four more at Whiteman got the
Bronze
Star, including the support commander, the operations commander
and
the leader of the bomber wing itself -none of them for actions
in the
combat zone. Closer, but still hundreds of miles from the
fighting in
Yugoslavia, the civil engineering squadron commander at Aviano
Air
Base, Italy, got the Bronze Star nod for building a "miraculous"
tent
city, according to his citation.

So, too, did the three colonels who spent the majority of the
war
"engaged in ground operations against an opposing armed force"
behind
their desks at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, working on overflight
clearances and basing rights. In fact, of the 185 medals handed
out
by the Air Force in the nine months since the war ended, nine
out of
every 10 have been awarded for service far from the combat zone
in
the Balkans.

A mixed bag

Stars and Stripes reviewed the Bronze Stars that have been
awarded
from NATO's 78-day effort to drive Slobodan Milosevic out of
Kosovo.
The results show what several military experts and combat
historians
describe as a disturbing trend not only in the Air Force, but in
the
Navy as well. Take Adm. James Ellis' right-hand man during the
air
campaign, a Navy captain who worked in Naples, Italy, as the
executive assistant to the commander of NATO's U.S. contingent.

For that work, the captain also received the Bronze Star, along
with
69 other sailors. His citation, signed by Ellis, said the
captain
"distinguished himself by meritorious achievement in connection
with
action against the enemy." In fact, Ellis gave five members of
his
Naples-based staff Bronze Stars, only one of which -to Marine
Brig.
Gen. James Amos -was for actions actually in the
combat zone. Ellis declined to comment.

Most of the other Navy awards went to those in the fleet where
aircraft carriers and cruise missile-launching ships and
submarines
pressed the attack from the sea. Because there was a threat from
Yugoslavia's navy, the waters around the Balkans -the Adriatic
and
Ionian Seas - were considered part of the combat zone.

So was Albania because it is within range of Serbian artillery
and
long-range rockets, and threat of counterattack was greatest
there.
As the war kicked into high gear, 5,000 Army soldiers, in what
was
dubbed Task Force Hawk, slogged their way into the muddy fields
and
rugged mountains of Albania and set up attack bases, poised to
launch
tank-killing helicopters and missiles into Kosovo. Although they
were
never used in combat, two aviators were killed training in
Albania's
highlands -the only casualties of the conflict -and many of
those
troops were among the first to roll into a still smoldering
Kosovo.

Since the war has ended, Army peacekeepers have driven back
riots
while being pummeled with rocks and sticks, shelled by mortars,
shot
at and injured by land mines. None of them has received the
Bronze
Star.

Open interpretations

Few in the Army have heard about the Air Force's and Navy's
awards.
But reaction is almost always the same when they do. "What?
You're
kidding, right?" said one Army major, who deployed to Albania
during
the war. "Well, I guess that's one standard. I have no problem
with a
pilot or aircrew member who actually flew into harm's way
getting
whatever they deserve, but, wow, a Bronze Star to someone who
never
set foot in the combat zone? That's amazing."

That's what many outside the military are saying as well.

"I've never heard of anyone getting a Bronze Star who wasn't at
least
in the combat zone," said Dennis Giangreco, managing editor of
Military Review, a monthly magazine on combat history. "That's a
new
one. I can see people who have received Bronze Stars in the past
being none too pleased about it."

Frank Dugan is one of those people. During his two tours in
Vietnam,
he received three Bronze Stars. One he says he "really earned,"
fighting his way from a landing helicopter in a "hot" landing
zone.
The other two were "only" part of a campaign to recapture lost
bunkers, he said. "I cannot recall a single instance of any
serviceperson getting a Bronze Star who didn't go into the
combat
zone," said Dugan, who's now a top official for one of the
United
States' largest veterans groups, the 2.8 million-member
American Legion. "Frankly, I think it sets a bad precedent."

Word of these latest Bronze Stars already is spreading among
veterans. "We've gotten several angry letters," Dugan said.

Ironically, the Bronze Star was created to give the
rank-and-file
soldiers -the proverbial ground-pounders in the Army -something
to be
proud of while slugging it out through World War II. Gen. George
C.
Marshall convinced President Franklin Roosevelt to start minting
the
medals because pilots and aircrews were getting Air Medals, but
the
infantryman had no comparable award.

"Marshall never meant for people at the staff headquarters to
get the
Bronze Star," said Larry Bland, editor of the four-volume Papers
of
George Catlett Marshall. "It was for the grunts who were doing
the
hard work and who were actually getting shot at." Navy and Air
Force
leaders, however, say the times have changed.

Sign of the times

When it comes to medals, said Lt. Col. Nancy Lee, "the Air Force
has
its own philosophy." "We fought the air campaign from remote
locations," said Lee, who helped manage the thousands of
nominations
for awards from Allied Force.

"The senior leadership strongly believed we fought this from
home
bases," said Lee, who sat in all five of the Air Force's boards
that
reviewed all top-level award nominations like the Bronze Star.
"The
way we're fighting our wars is different now."

The conflict, she said, "was not Vietnam, where we set up our
wings
in Vietnam. It was not Desert Storm, where we flew from Riyadh."

Plus, Lee said, when it comes to the Bronze Star, there is
"nothing
in the criteria that limits it to a geographic area."

That might be true, said Senior Master Sgt. Fred Klock, who
heads up
the Air Force's Awards and Decorations department at Randolph
Air
Force Base, Texas, but "historically, it's always been
associated
with combat. It's only been given when people are engaged with
enemy." In this case, said Klock, "it sounds like a liberal
definition of 'engaged with enemy' was being applied."

Klock said this is an issue the Air Force will have to come to
grips
with in the coming years. "Hopefully it's not diluting the
medal, but
this is something the Air Force is wrestling with as we move to
an
expeditionary force. Everything doesn't fit into a neat little
box
anymore."

But he's not convinced the Bronze Stars for Kosovo were
inappropriate. "Hopefully, it's giving them recognition for a
hard
job done well."

Historically, he concedes, the Meritorious Service Medal is
usually
reserved for just that kind of award outside of combat zones.
Barbara
Wilson agrees. Wilson is the head of the Navy's Medals and
Decorations department at the Pentagon. "The MSM is the Bronze
Star
equivalent outside the combat zone," she said.

Any Bronze Star awarded for the same thing would be
"inappropriate," she said.

"The regulations are clear: heroic or meritorious service in
connection with combat operations," says Wilson, quoting the
Navy's
policy. "That means you have to be in a combat zone."

Medals always are awarded on a case-by-base basis, she said, but
for
a Bronze Star being awarded outside of the combat zone, "there
would
have to be an exception to policy."

Navy Capt. Steve Honda, spokesman for Ellis, argues all 69 of
the
Bronze Stars given to sailors in Naples, Italy, were
appropriate.

"These are all people who were directly involved in the
operation,"
Honda said. "When these awards were vetted, it was done in
accordance
and in the spirit of our awards manual. We were going by the
guidance." Plus, said Honda, defining the combat zone could be
open
to interpretation.

"If you want to define the combat zone as those who received tax
exclusion and hostile fire pay, people in Italy qualified," he
said.

Several of the officers might have traveled into the combat zone
aboard ship or in Macedonia or Albania, Honda said, but he could
not
be certain. Regardless, Clinton recently announced the creation
of
the Kosovo Campaign Medal to recognize servicemembers involved
in
Allied Force. Those who qualify for it include troops who served
in
areas already considered the combat zone, plus the rest of the
Balkans and Italy as well.

While that might lend support to the Bronze Stars being awarded
to
the Navy and Air Force people who spent the war in Italy, it
will
make it tough for the dozens of servicemembers in Germany,
England,
Spain and the United States who will inevitably have to answer
the
tough question of how they got a Bronze Star for fighting in
Kosovo,
but were not officially part of the Kosovo campaign.

--------------------
European Stars and Stripes

June 4, 2000

Pg. 3


<bold><bigger>Awarding Of Bronze Stars Questioned


</bigger></bold>Combat medal given to troops not entering combat
zone


(First of two parts)


By Jon R. Anderson, Stars and Stripes


This time last year, an Air Force lieutenant colonel was leading
a team
of mechanics and maintenance crews at Whiteman Air Force Base,
Mo.,
making sure the B-2 bomber was a regular player in the air
campaign
against Yugoslavia some 5,000 miles away. For his efforts, he is
among
the nearly 200 Air Force members to receive the nation's
fourth-highest
combat award, the Bronze Star. And like the lieutenant colonel,
the
majority of those who received the coveted awards did so for
actions
far from the combat zone.


Last year's Operation Allied Force contained many firsts. It was
NATO's
first all-out military campaign and it also was the first won by
air
power alone. And it was the first campaign fought predominantly
-from
one side, at least -from afar. So far, in fact, that it has
radically
changed the way troops are being recognized for their wartime
contributions. For the first time in U.S. history, scores of
troops who
never went near the combat zone are being given Bronze Star
combat
medals, while -perhaps ironically - most of the ground troops
closest
to the fighting have gotten none.


<bold><italic>Meaningful decoration


</italic></bold>For many civilians, awards like the Bronze Star
Medal,
with its red, white and blue ribbon, might seem like little more
than
colorful ornaments to decorate fancy uniforms. But for those who
wear
those uniforms, medals -especially combat awards -are not only a
source
of professional pride and boosted morale, but often are linked
to
promotions and key career-building

assignments.


Such was evidenced by the storm of controversy that erupted when
three
1st Infantry Division soldiers captured in Macedonia -and beaten
before
their release a month later -were awarded the Purple Heart, the
nation's oldest award. The Purple Heart is reserved for those
wounded
in combat and is listed below the Bronze Star in the military's
"order
of precedence" chart.


Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Boorda committed suicide in
1996
only hours after learning he was being investigated by Newsweek
for
improperly wearing combat medals from Vietnam. Make no mistake,
experts
say, medals are important to those in uniform.


"The Bronze Star was initially created for combat-fighting men,"
said
Frank Foster, author of the Complete Guide to All U.S. Military
Medals:
1939 to Present. "It seems awfully strange that people far from
the
combat zone would qualify for it."


Jim Thompson, author of Decorations, Medals, Badges and Insignia
of
U.S. Marine Corps and the soon-to-be-released book by the same
title
for the Navy, laughed out loud when called for comment.


"I guess I'm surprised and a little alarmed that our decorations
-particularly a combat decoration -are being given out this way.
"The
message this sends is that the medal has been diluted," he said.
"They've stretched it too far."


<bold><italic>Engaging the enemy


</italic></bold>The criteria for the Bronze Star medal is
specific.
According to Defense Department regulations, the medal is to be
awarded
to servicemembers "engaged in an action against an enemy of the
United
States" or an "opposing foreign force." What qualified as the
combat
zone for Operation Allied Force was equally specific. According
to
President Clinton's executive order signed April 13, the combat
zone
was defined as Yugoslavia, Albania, the Adriatic Sea and the
northern
Ionian Sea. It also included the airspace above these areas,
thus
covering the aircrews of long-range bombers and naval aircraft
flying
missions into the combat

zone. Servicemembers in Macedonia and Bosnia already were
considered
inside the combat zone because of earlier designations.
According to
the medal's requirements, the Bronze Star only can be awarded
for
action on the ground. The Air Medal covers heroism in flight.


The citation for the lieutenant colonel in Missouri, like most,
reads
that he earned the medal for "meritorious achievement while
engaged in
ground operations against an opposing armed force." In Missouri.
And he
was not alone. At least four more at Whiteman got the Bronze
Star,
including the support commander, the operations commander and
the
leader of the bomber wing itself -none of them for actions in
the
combat zone. Closer, but still hundreds of miles from the
fighting in
Yugoslavia, the civil engineering squadron commander at Aviano
Air
Base, Italy, got the Bronze Star nod for building a "miraculous"
tent
city, according to his citation.


So, too, did the three colonels who spent the majority of the
war
"engaged in ground operations against an opposing armed force"
behind
their desks at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, working on overflight
clearances and basing rights. In fact, of the 185 medals handed
out by
the Air Force in the nine months since the war ended, nine out
of every
10 have been awarded for service far from the combat zone in the
Balkans.


<bold><italic>A mixed bag


</italic></bold>Stars and Stripes reviewed the Bronze Stars that
have
been awarded from NATO's 78-day effort to drive Slobodan
Milosevic out
of Kosovo. The results show what several military experts and
combat
historians describe as a disturbing trend not only in the Air
Force,
but in the Navy as well. Take Adm. James Ellis' right-hand man
during
the air campaign, a Navy captain who worked in Naples, Italy, as
the
executive assistant to the commander of NATO's U.S. contingent.


For that work, the captain also received the Bronze Star, along
with 69
other sailors. His citation, signed by Ellis, said the captain
"distinguished himself by meritorious achievement in connection
with
action against the enemy." In fact, Ellis gave five members of
his
Naples-based staff Bronze Stars, only one of which -to Marine
Brig.
Gen. James Amos -was for actions actually in the

combat zone. Ellis declined to comment.


Most of the other Navy awards went to those in the fleet where
aircraft
carriers and cruise missile-launching ships and submarines
pressed the
attack from the sea. Because there was a threat from
Yugoslavia's navy,
the waters around the Balkans -the Adriatic and Ionian Seas -
were
considered part of the combat zone.


So was Albania because it is within range of Serbian artillery
and
long-range rockets, and threat of counterattack was greatest
there. As
the war kicked into high gear, 5,000 Army soldiers, in what was
dubbed
Task Force Hawk, slogged their way into the muddy fields and
rugged
mountains of Albania and set up attack bases, poised to launch
tank-killing helicopters and missiles into Kosovo. Although they
were
never used in combat, two aviators were killed training in
Albania's
highlands -the only casualties of the conflict -and many of
those
troops were among the first to roll into a still smoldering
Kosovo.


Since the war has ended, Army peacekeepers have driven back
riots while
being pummeled with rocks and sticks, shelled by mortars, shot
at and
injured by land mines. None of them has received the Bronze
Star.


<bold><italic>Open interpretations


</italic></bold>Few in the Army have heard about the Air Force's
and
Navy's awards. But reaction is almost always the same when they
do.
"What? You're kidding, right?" said one Army major, who deployed
to
Albania during the war. "Well, I guess that's one standard. I
have no
problem with a pilot or aircrew member who actually flew into
harm's
way getting whatever they deserve, but, wow, a Bronze Star to
someone
who never set foot in the combat zone? That's amazing."


That's what many outside the military are saying as well.


"I've never heard of anyone getting a Bronze Star who wasn't at
least
in the combat zone," said Dennis Giangreco, managing editor of
Military
Review, a monthly magazine on combat history. "That's a new one.
I can
see people who have received Bronze Stars in the past being none
too
pleased about it."


Frank Dugan is one of those people. During his two tours in
Vietnam, he
received three Bronze Stars. One he says he "really earned,"
fighting
his way from a landing helicopter in a "hot" landing zone. The
other
two were "only" part of a campaign to recapture lost bunkers, he
said.
"I cannot recall a single instance of any serviceperson getting
a
Bronze Star who didn't go into the combat zone," said Dugan,
who's now
a top official for one of the United States' largest veterans
groups,
the 2.8 million-member

American Legion. "Frankly, I think it sets a bad precedent."


Word of these latest Bronze Stars already is spreading among
veterans.
"We've gotten several angry letters," Dugan said.


Ironically, the Bronze Star was created to give the
rank-and-file
soldiers -the proverbial ground-pounders in the Army -something
to be
proud of while slugging it out through World War II. Gen. George
C.
Marshall convinced President Franklin Roosevelt to start minting
the
medals because pilots and aircrews were getting Air Medals, but
the
infantryman had no comparable award.


"Marshall never meant for people at the staff headquarters to
get the
Bronze Star," said Larry Bland, editor of the four-volume Papers
of
George Catlett Marshall. "It was for the grunts who were doing
the hard
work and who were actually getting shot at." Navy and Air Force
leaders, however, say the times have changed.


<bold><italic>Sign of the times


</italic></bold>When it comes to medals, said Lt. Col. Nancy
Lee, "the
Air Force has its own philosophy." "We fought the air campaign
from
remote locations," said Lee, who helped manage the thousands of
nominations for awards from Allied Force.


"The senior leadership strongly believed we fought this from
home
bases," said Lee, who sat in all five of the Air Force's boards
that
reviewed all top-level award nominations like the Bronze Star.
"The way
we're fighting our wars is different now."


The conflict, she said, "was not Vietnam, where we set up our
wings in
Vietnam. It was not Desert Storm, where we flew from Riyadh."


Plus, Lee said, when it comes to the Bronze Star, there is
"nothing in
the criteria that limits it to a geographic area."


That might be true, said Senior Master Sgt. Fred Klock, who
heads up
the Air Force's Awards and Decorations department at Randolph
Air Force
Base, Texas, but "historically, it's always been associated with
combat. It's only been given when people are engaged with
enemy." In
this case, said Klock, "it sounds like a liberal definition of
'engaged
with enemy' was being applied."


Klock said this is an issue the Air Force will have to come to
grips
with in the coming years. "Hopefully it's not diluting the
medal, but
this is something the Air Force is wrestling with as we move to
an
expeditionary force. Everything doesn't fit into a neat little
box
anymore."


But he's not convinced the Bronze Stars for Kosovo were
inappropriate.
"Hopefully, it's giving them recognition for a hard job done
well."


Historically, he concedes, the Meritorious Service Medal is
usually
reserved for just that kind of award outside of combat zones.
Barbara
Wilson agrees. Wilson is the head of the Navy's Medals and
Decorations
department at the Pentagon. "The MSM is the Bronze Star
equivalent
outside the combat zone," she said.


Any Bronze Star awarded for the same thing would be
"inappropriate,"
she said.


"The regulations are clear: heroic or meritorious service in
connection
with combat operations," says Wilson, quoting the Navy's policy.
"That
means you have to be in a combat zone."


Medals always are awarded on a case-by-base basis, she said, but
for a
Bronze Star being awarded outside of the combat zone, "there
would have
to be an exception to policy."


Navy Capt. Steve Honda, spokesman for Ellis, argues all 69 of
the
Bronze Stars given to sailors in Naples, Italy, were

appropriate.


"These are all people who were directly involved in the
operation,"
Honda said. "When these awards were vetted, it was done in
accordance
and in the spirit of our awards manual. We were going by the
guidance."
Plus, said Honda, defining the combat zone could be open to
interpretation.


"If you want to define the combat zone as those who received tax
exclusion and hostile fire pay, people in Italy qualified," he
said.


Several of the officers might have traveled into the combat zone
aboard
ship or in Macedonia or Albania, Honda said, but he could not be
certain. Regardless, Clinton recently announced the creation of
the
Kosovo Campaign Medal to recognize servicemembers involved in
Allied
Force. Those who qualify for it include troops who served in
areas
already considered the combat zone, plus the rest of the Balkans
and
Italy as well.


While that might lend support to the Bronze Stars being awarded
to the
Navy and Air Force people who spent the war in Italy, it will
make it
tough for the dozens of servicemembers in Germany, England,
Spain and
the United States who will inevitably have to answer the tough
question
of how they got a Bronze Star for fighting in Kosovo, but were
not
officially part of the Kosovo campaign.

in The Nam. I saw Marines who did Heroic acts get put up for the Medal and it was Earned. Some Marines never rec'd Medals for actions in Combat. It was there Job. Reading Sh$t like this, you are not going to tell me we as a nation are better now than before. Thanks for the update, SF Jose