Defense of Freedom Medal:

September 30, 2001 8:01 AM

Defense of Freedom Medal: Civilians on government business who were injured or died in the course of 9/11 to be awarded a new Defense of Freedom medal. Interesting, but this will mean little for the thousands of civilians who were in private employment. Link via the online version of Stars and Stripes.
posted by DBAPaul (4 comments total)

The Stars and Stripes article describes the Defense of Freedom Medal as "a historic new medal, the civilian equivalent of a Purple Heart." Civilians working for the military who are killed or injured by a terrorist attack are already eligible for the actual Purple Heart according to Army Regulation 600-8-22, Chapter 2-8 [PDF file]:

"The Purple Heart is awarded in the name of the President of the United States to any member of an Armed Force or any civilian national of the United States who, while serving under competent authority in any capacity with one of the U.S. Armed Services after 5 April 1917, has been wounded or killed, or who has died or may hereafter die after being wounded...as a result of an international terrorist attack against the United States..." [other criteria deleted]

Since civilians working for the military are eligible for the Purple Heart, they should receive that. In fact, it's disrespectful to replace a medal awarded by the president with a medal awarded by the secretary of defense.

The new medal's design is specifically related to the attacks on September 11, 2001. It doesn't seem respectful to only award medals to a subset of people who were killed or injured in the attacks. Why should only military people get a medal? But then, if everyone gets a medal, doesn't that diminish the significance of the medal?
posted by kirkaracha at 6:41 PM on September 30, 2001

Medal inflation has been a longstanding problem in the military.

Given that this was an unprecedented event, I'm willing to cut them a little slack. Clearly this medal has the intent of being awarded not only to civilian employees, but employees of contractors or anyone who was at the Pentagon that day on official business. (But I don't see where the design is "specifically related" -- looks pretty generic to me.) On the whole, I'd rather that more people get a medal than that one or two people get tons of undeserved medals via politics, the classic tin-pot dictator with a chest full of metal. Ours is a better problem to have.

As for the people in the WTC, they weren't working for the government. And I'm sure they'll get honored in many different ways.
posted by dhartung at 6:52 PM on September 30, 2001

But I don't see where the design is "specifically related"-- looks pretty generic to me.

From the DOD news release: "The number of red stripes represents the four terrorist attacks using hijacked airplanes and the single blue stripe represents the terrorist attack on the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001."
posted by kirkaracha at 7:12 PM on September 30, 2001

Hi, Miguel.
posted by yhbc at 9:04 PM on April 13, 2002