Sgt Dakota Meyer

[RB]

Originally Posted by Spike Pretorius

Medals should be taken with a pinch of salt. The main function is to raise morale. The military will always embellish the stories. Call it marketing.

Blood and guts called a "pinch of salt"? "War valor" called a pinch of salt?

"Marketing"?

Must disagree. The military aren't the embellishers, the "doubters" and anti-war MSM are usually the ones that call into question a military award for valor like Sgt. Dakota earned, the MoH.

Originally Posted by Spike Pretorius

Most medals are for arbitrary stuff such as long service, served at such n such place, blah blah. Meaningless really.

"blah, blah"? "Meaningless"?? You, sir, are in the wrong business. We don't do blah blah or meaningless. We go to war to fight for the rights and freedoms of those here in the US as well as those who cannot fight for themselves. I wouldn't classify that as "blah blah or meaningless.. Mebbe I'm reading your post wrong. Please enlighten me.

Originally Posted by Spike Pretorius

Then the ones that do count, the medals for valour, well for every guy who gets one there another 100 nameless guys who should also be getting one.

and every soldier who has earned the MoH for the last 60 years has said the exact same thing. "I didn't earn it, they did"....and they are not "nameless guys", they are warriors who gave their lives and/or sacrificed life and limb for the freedoms of others.

Originally Posted by Spike Pretorius

Me personally, the only trinket that I kept from those days is my beret with it's badge and my marksman badge. The rest went in the trash

Not our fault.










Congrats Dakota, from those who weren't there but appreciate your sacrifice and effort.

[8Ball]

Awesome. I give this a big thumbs up...

Originally Posted by RB

Blood and guts called a "pinch of salt"? "War valor" called a pinch of salt?

"Marketing"?

Must disagree. The military aren't the embellishers, the "doubters" and anti-war MSM are usually the ones that call into question a military award for valor like Sgt. Dakota earned, the MoH.



"blah, blah"? "Meaningless"?? You, sir, are in the wrong business. We don't do blah blah or meaningless. We go to war to fight for the rights and freedoms of those here in the US as well as those who cannot fight for themselves. I wouldn't classify that as "blah blah or meaningless.. Mebbe I'm reading your post wrong. Please enlighten me.



and every soldier who has earned the MoH for the last 60 years has said the exact same thing. "I didn't earn it, they did"....and they are not "nameless guys", they are warriors who gave their lives and/or sacrificed life and limb for the freedoms of others.



Not our fault.










Congrats Dakota, from those who weren't there but appreciate your sacrifice and effort.

[destaccado]

Originally Posted by RB

"Marketing"?

Must disagree. The military aren't the embellishers, the "doubters" and anti-war MSM are usually the ones that call into question a military award for valor like Sgt. Dakota earned, the MoH.



"blah, blah"? "Meaningless"?? You, sir, are in the wrong business. We don't do blah blah or meaningless. We go to war to fight for the rights and freedoms of those here in the US as well as those who cannot fight for themselves. I wouldn't classify that as "blah blah or meaningless.. Mebbe I'm reading your post wrong. Please enlighten me.

"The military aren't the embellishers"

The awards I saw given in the Army were embellished all the time. My own awards make me sound like a good candidate to be the future Sergeant Major of the Army. I've seen my brother-in-law's embellished USMC awards as well so I refuse to believe it's a single-service issue...

In regards to only "doubters" and anti-war MSM" questioning military awards -- what about those of us who have a lot of respect for the MoH award and don't like having hit pieces like this surface later because due diligence of the individuals responsible for issuing the award wasn't properly done? What if the journalist is actually right and the award was embellished or exaggerated? You don't see an issue with that? How do you know him well enough to question his integrity?

"We don't do blah blah or meaningless."

A huge portion of what the military does is "blah blah & meaningless" with a small portion of actual war fighting thrown in by a small portion of the actual force. Have you had your sexual harassment brief, your cultural diversity, your gay-rights brief done lately? Are you up to snuff with your Army Warrior tasks check-the-box training (or USMC equivalent)??? The military even has commonly used sayings about "blah blah and meaningless" - "hurry up and wait", "check the box", etc...

You can't be part of the solution when you don't even recognize the problem...

[8Ball]

Not trying to be an ass but, the guy you are quoting/addressing has more than enough "Trigger time" and experience during his career to formulate his opinions. That whole tip of the spear thing and all. I happen to agree with him. Soldering is filled with some bullshit. It's part of it. I don't consider honor and valor to be in that category.

RB is a big boy, though. I'll let him defend his own opinion.

[destaccado]

I respect RB's service as much as anyone here does -- that has absolutely nothing to do with us disagreeing over this.

My honest guess would be that being at "the tip of the spear" as you put it - has possibly allowed RB to miss seeing a lot of the bullshit that takes place in regular units during the military awards process as the guys in his unit had enough going on where they could actually earn theirs without having people feel the need to fabricate or exaggerate...
...even if you haven't seen exaggeration in your own unit - look at Jessica Lynch's Silver Star -- it happens...

In this case I don't think that anyone here is questioning whether Dakota Meyer actually deserves his MoH -- from everything I've read, he unquestionably does. I simply feel that it's definitely possible some of the claims were exaggerated by the military as I've witnessed that exact thing while serving myself and it's happened in high profile incidents in the past...