Should've gotten the Soldiers Medal
I've seen the Soldiers Medal awarded for less. Terrible downgrade.
I've seen the Soldiers Medal awarded for less. Terrible downgrade.
That’ll be wild when some cherry LT shows up with a Purple Heart on their uniform and their commander has no idea of the context behind it.
Purple Heart before NDSM is crazy
Before the Army Service Ribbon even
Do they still do the NDSM even? I heard no fairly recently I thought?
I keep saying it and it keeps being funny, but what's really going to be wild is when their PSG tries talking shit.
Cue a SGM
tellingasking them to take the ribbon off their ASUsHell, imagine BOLC.
I'd like to imagine they will be cool. Like at transpo bolc we had a scrolled, mustard stain 2LT from the invasion of Baghdad. Nicest guy ever other than how much he was a bad influence on "making us" golf. He had nothing on his uniform and just called himself a dumb LT until an instructor called him a dumb LT. Then came the one set with his badges.
This sort of rep will precede them I think. Future commanders will know the deal.
Since they got purple hearts that might conflict with the heroism not involving the enemy part of the soldiers medal?
The France train attack Airman got an Airman’s Medal and a Purple Heart. It’s not out of the realm of possibility and the Secretary of the army can push for whatever he likes in the end.
That’s true, it IS under their authority after all whether someone disagrees with it or not. It’s completely within SECARMYs realm to consider it as an appropriate/ relevant award.
In my opinion if we're getting hung up on the "involving the enemy" part then we should be talking about Bronze Star vs Soldier's Medal. I don't see how the MSM is the appropriate award at all.
In 1999 Congress wrote into law that one needed to be authorized hostile fire/imminent danger pay to be awarded the BSM. In order to be authorized HF/IDP a person needs to be receiving some form of "base pay" per the DOD Financial Management Regulation Vol 7A Chapter 10.
The Purple Heart, Soldier's Medal, and MSM do not have a requirement that the member be receiving pay at the time of the service/achievement.
The lack of HF/IDP also serves as a technical barrier towards award of the CAB, although HRC, G-1, CSA, and SECARMY have the authority to waive that requirement.
This is just one of those situations where there is a regulatory gap (like being able to earn a CIB, CAB, CMB but not being authorized a SSI-MOIHC/FWTS) because no one every thought of this contingency occuring.
Best I can do is staff duty on a Tuesday before a Thur-Sun 4 day.
I'm glad to see they got recognized. I've met soldiers in Hawaii, who saved swimmers did not get anything.
Flare checks out 🤣
Hot take: Either SMA or Cadet Command said no To higher than an MSM, or its interim.
SMA and SECArmy were at the presentation.
From personal experience, I guarantee Cadet Command tried to prevent them from getting any real Army medals at all, and pushed for the ROTC Medal of Heroism. I would hope SECARMY told them to fuck off
Dude seriously.
I’ve gotten MSM’s for doing presentations to generals.
Yo, what the fuck is going on with these award packets these days? Where can I see the citation for this?
Do they wear the ROTC combat patch?
That would be fucking hilarious
It’s an interim award. This is done quite literally all the time for higher level awards. It’s to recognize the service immediately. It will be upgraded to a Soldiers Medal, it just takes longer.
Why would it take longer if the SecArmy is the one awarding them?
It honestly depends on what they did. The language for criteria of the Soldiers Medal is pretty specific.
It’s also a gap in the awards system. The MsM is specifically not supposed to be an intermediate between an ARCOM and the SM. The ARCOM is explicitly listed as the downgrade award for a Soldiers Medal.
They fought off an armed gunman that barged into their ROTC class, with a knife.
Pretty sure that is exactly the description of -> "The act must involve personal hazard, voluntary risk of life, and occur outside of actual armed conflict."
People have gotten soldiers medals for "pulling" people out of car crash.
Dudes did the same if not more than the west point cadet that took down an active shooter.
I had a similar situation in Afghanistan, took IDF very close to our barracks, submitted for CABs like the 82nd guys in the same building. The 82nd was the approval authority for us at the time. The same colonel approved theirs and denied ours. Not overly pissed because it was IDF, but it's the principle. If there's clear precedent for a higher award it should be given.
I’d make the argument this CANT be an SM situation. By awarding PH we’re (rightfully imo) defining this event as combat and the SM is very very clearly defined for non-combat.
At the same time I’m not sure the MSM should be the award either, but we’d need the write up on each individual to know exactly what’s appropriate. It might be an MSM for taking charge/directing traffic/rendering aid when the shooters down or something like that, but I’d argue anyone who went from zero to “just tackled a terrorist active shooter while I was unarmed and thousands of miles from IDP” could get a pretty good argument for a BSMV or even SS. That’s some crazy shit.
Now that I am done dealing with GO needs for day, eaten dinner and walked the dogs; I've had time to think about these awards a bit.
From the Army leadership's perspective, it might have been difficult to differentiate the heroism between the eight individuals who were awarded the MSM's. Awarding 8 Soldiers Medals would be unprecedented as the previous number of awardees for a single event in the last 50+ was 3 for the 1994 Pope Air Force Base Green Ramp fire.
Yes, I had to go deep down the Google rabit hole for that bit of info.
Concur. MSM makes no sense here. It’s almost always an end of tour award for a major or first sergeant; I’ve never heard of it being awarded for heroism.
How about automatic O-1E pay
I’d rather the army spit in my face than get an MSM for what they did
Is there some kind of red tape because they were still cadets? Even if there was I feel like it shouldn’t matter coming from the Secretary
https://dd.reddit.com/r/army/comments/1s1nxkb/abcs_steve_beynon_army_secretary_driscoll_sma/
Meanwhile, we had people bitching about the two guard soldiers in DC getting Purple Hearts