Air Force honored Reality Winner for Taking out Enemy Combatants

The Atlanta Journal Constitution ^ | June 7, 2017 | John Edwards

[Cecily]

Before she became the first person prosecuted by the Trump administration for leaking documents, Reality Leigh Winner received a military commendation for assisting in overseas airstrikes that killed hundreds of enemy combatants.

Winner, an Air Force senior airman, was a linguist proficient in Farsi, Dari and Pashto, languages spoken in Iran and Afghanistan. She served with the 94th Intelligence Squadron, 707th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing, at Fort Meade, Md.

Though her parents say Winner never deployed outside the U.S., her work was considered so valuable that in October, she earned an Air Force Commendation Medal. That was two months before her discharge.

[rlmorel]

Well, if you can’t be skilled with a soldiering iron in the military, what are ya good for, then?

[pfflier]

I was awarded an Air Force Commendation Medal (AFCM) and never compromised or used it to justify the compromise of classified information.

BTW the AFCM is semi-mockingly called the PCS ribbon. If you do a halfway decent job the unit you are leaving recommends a Meritorious Service Medal which is then downgraded to the AFCM by the major command.

[rlmorel]

Heh, sorry.

[Chainmail]

I attended an Air Force Staff NCO Academy dinner one evening years ago and sitting across from me was a pretty blond Airman who was wearing the ribbon for the Bronze Star medal on her dress uniform.

I asked he how she won such an award and she said very brightly that she won it for her "support of the combat efforts in Grenada". I hadn't heard of any females being involved in combat in Grenada, so I asked where she was located during the fight and she told me "Washington DC".

Must've been hell.

[DoughtyOne]

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[rlmorel]

I feel the same way. I know the bar for treason is high, but when Jane Fonda never got charged...you knew then that there was no such thing as a treason charge anymore.

Unless, of course, it is a liberal in charge and it suits their needs...

[pfflier]

Where on earth did she learn those languages? Was that part of her training in the AF - language school?

Look up Defense Language Institute on the internet then ask the question again.

[rebuildus]

And Benedict Arnold was a war hero... Not gonna work, media

[petitfour]

6 years in the Air Force. Language school is very intense and lasts almost two years of singular focus on whatever language assigned. Some languages have shorter schooling. The school has a high drop out rate. Very.

[onona]

Wrong-O Unk.

this is not a medal for a "half decent" job.

I've written recommendations, and if they're not up to snuff, it doesn't happen.

And yeah, you do have to earn it.

[Yo-Yo]

I wasn’t in the military, I was in the Air Force!

[EEGator]

Nonsense, the Army has the most shitbirds.

http://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2014-Demographics-Report.pdf

See page 23

[rlmorel]

LOL! Sigh, I laugh, but...I don’t know what your Air Force was like, but today’s Navy is depressingly and alarmingly different from my Navy, and the one I observed growing up.

[Steve_Seattle]

Predictable - the media coming to her defense, almost as if she was arrested BECAUSE she was a government linguist.

[jjotto]

Not even close to being charged with treason (it’s defined in the Constitution). Her Espionage Act charges carry a potential ten-year sentence. Her future is likely fame and fortune, even if she has to wait some years.

[MayflowerMadam]

I was going to mention that Benedict Arnold was a pretty good soldier — until he wasn’t.

[jimfree]

The second lowest award for individual performance. It’s a cool thing and good for a career, but that’s all it is.

[MayflowerMadam]

Rush was saying it’s all the same language. Difference between the three is accent and dialect.

Melania speaks seven different languages. Does the media ever report this?

[hanamizu]

Dari and Farsi are pretty much the same languages. Pashto is different. I learned (a very little Farsi/Dari when I was a Peace Corps trainee back in the late 60s bound for Afghanistan). I was “deselected” a couple of days before we were to leave—which was a stroke of luck for me since I got to avoid two enormous gamma globulin shots and the amoebic dysentery that everyone brought back from Afghanistan a month later. The whole “class” came back. One reason is we were taught Farsi, but they placed them in Pashto areas. Not only is Pashto different from Farsi it turned out that Pashto didn’t like being spoken to in Farsi/Dari.

[rlmorel]

When I was a kid living in Yokosuka, they would march the “brig rats” past us every morning while we waited for our bus. Right down the road, probably about 50 of them, shouting in cadence as they went by, flanked by Marines.

I looked forward to it every morning. It was something different (to a kid) and we would sit on a stone wall, kicking our legs in unison as they went by, grinning and laughing.

IIRC, we weren’t laughing at the prisoners, it was what they were doing that made us laugh, but I’ll bet at least a few wouldn’t have minded the chance to give us a swift kick while nobody was looking.

I didn’t see it so I don’t know for sure, but my brother told me our older brother would go out there and say “Daddy-come home!” as they went by...