New medal for drone combatants doesn't minimize the Bronze Star
Jim Deegan | For lehighvalleylive.com
The award is appropriate and reflects changes in American warfare.
Vietnam veteran Sonny Silva, of Hunterdon County, believes the Bronze Star should outrank the new Distinguished Warfare Medal. "As far as I'm concerned, anything higher than a Commendation Medal, you better be in combat," Silva says.
I could hear the fellas at the Legion hall howling all week.Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta created an uproar Wednesday when he announced the Pentagon is creating a medal, the Distinguished Warfare Medal, to recognize the wartime achievements of drone pilots and cyberattack defenders.The declaration was met with amusement and derision from leathernecks to high-ranking military officers.Chief among the clamor was the new medal's prestige  -  ranked higher than the Bronze Star but lower than the Silver Star. The Bronze Star recognizes meritorious service in combat. "If you're going to be decorated, you just don't just give fire, you take fire," said Jim Mineo, president of the Joint Veterans Council Forks of the Delaware.That someone sitting in a climate-controlled station manning a computer monitor could be rewarded to a higher degree than troops hauling through the hellfire of combat steamed many."They should be rewarded for doing a good job, but as far as I'm concerned, anything higher than a Commendation Medal, you better be in combat," said Sonny Silva, who fought in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970."A bigger part of combat than the actual combat is the apprehension of it," said Silva, who lives in Hunterdon County and earned a Bronze Star after his unit was ambushed and lost its point man. "You don't know if your next step's going to set off an IED. And even if you didn't have contact on a certain day, your stomach would still be tied in knots. Then you would get up the next day and do it all over again."This is an emotional topic in the VFWs and places like the Lopat Deli on Baltimore Street outside Phillipsburg. That's where renowned documentary filmmaker Lou Reda starts each day with a cup of coffee and the camaraderie of friends, many of them veterans with boxfuls of pins and ribbons.Reda, who served in the Navy during World War II, worries that the first combat-related medal to be created in 68 years might serve to cheapen the Bronze Star by rewarding combatants who aren't actually risking their lives to get it. "How are you going to award a medal to someone because they're in a room thousands of miles away somewhere pushing buttons?" Reda said.Good points, all.But recognizing the exceptional contributions of a drone controller is entirely appropriate and reflects the reality of warfare in the 21st century. It's also completely consistent with the way the government has awarded medals since the Civil War.The military awards many medals for exceptional service, including during peacetime. And many, like the Legion of Merit, rank higher in precedence than the Bronze Star.That's the perspective of Paul McHale, the former Lehigh Valley congressman and assistant secretary of defense for homeland security who is also a retired Marine Reserve colonel.The greater issue isn't the medal, according to McHale. It's whether or not recipients are eligible for a "Combat V," or V-device  -  a miniature bronze letter worn on certain decorations that recognize heroism in combat. The V stands for valor. And that's where McHale draws the line with the Distinguished Warfare Medal.Recipients of the Combat V put their lives on the line -- a key difference between troops in battle and a Predator pilot working under the shelter of an air base.Contrary to the popular perception of a gamer in flip-flops with a joystick in one hand and Mountain Dew in the other, though, controlling a drone is an incredibly challenging assignment."The job is sobering, and includes the necessary taking of human life," McHale said. "This is a job done under great stress where the duty involves protection of innocent life and the taking out of enemy ones. Lives are certainly held in the balance. When someone performs that duty and does it exceptionally, with professionalism and competency, awarding a person a medal is entirely appropriate."Though they may never set foot on the battlefield, drone pilots directly affect combat operations.According to Pentagon criteria, the new medal gives the military a way to recognize a single act that affects combat, does not involve an act of valor (no Combat V) and warrants an award higher than the Bronze Star."I have no complaint at all if a competent drone controller is awarded a medal of high prestige outside a combat zone, so long as it is not accompanied by a Combat V for valor," McHale said. Which doesn't take anything away from the thousands who trampled battlefields and came home with Bronze Stars. Comments