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McGraw: Lynch should be given Congressional Medal of Honor
Parkersburg News and Sentinel ^ | April 12, 2003

Posted on 04/11/2003 11:36:58 PM PDT by flutters

West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw is sending letters to President Bush and the state's congressional representatives to encourage the awarding of the Congressional Medal of Honor to Pfc. Jessica Lynch, the 19-year-old former prisoner of war from Palestine.

"It's clear to me that she demonstrates the characteristics of an American hero," McGraw said.

Lynch, a supply clerk with the 507th Maintenance Company, was rescued April 1 from a hospital in Nasiriyah. She had been taken prisoner March 23 after her convoy took a wrong turn and was ambushed by Iraqi forces.

Reports said Lynch fired on her attackers and fought fiercely before being captured.

She has been treated for a head wound, injury to her spine and fractures to her right arm, both legs and right foot and ankle.

"It's just absolutely heart-stopping," McGraw said.

"It brings tears to my eyes every time I hear a story about it."

"While many others have served with great honor and distinction in our struggle in Iraq, I believe that the bravery shown by Pfc. Lynch and the impact her conduct had upon the morale of our troops and the mood of our nation qualifies her for this high honor," said McGraw.

The Medal of Honor was made a permanent decoration by Congress in 1863. It is the "highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States," according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

More than 3,400 Medals of Honor have been presented, according to the U.S. Army.

Only one woman has ever been awarded the Medal of Honor. Mary Walker, the first American woman to be a military doctor and a prisoner of war, received the medal in 1866 for her service during the Civil War.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: West Virginia
KEYWORDS: cmh; jessicalynch; moh
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To: cynicom
I guess I'm having trouble understanding your point. They got medals, the pilot got a Distinguished Flying Cross - how is that relevant to this discussion? (Sincere question. I have an idea what you're suggesting but I don't want to respond without knowing for sure.)
81 posted on 04/12/2003 11:01:36 AM PDT by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet (Did you liberals say something? It's all just clicks and buzzes over here.)
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To: DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
OK...Some people do not want Jessica to get any medal or in fact no particular recognition. Some want her to get a medal and a place of importance in the news.

Not discussing who is right or wrong, I was merely pointing out that Bush passed out medals by the handful to the 24 crew members that gave the Chinese their aircraft.

This fact would perhaps argue that Jessica earns something beyond a $25 Purple Heart.

82 posted on 04/12/2003 11:06:46 AM PDT by cynicom
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To: SamAdams76
I don't know what McGraw's political bent is (liberal or conservative) but I expected some liberal Democrat to propose just this thing to put President Bush on the spot.

At least one already has. Chris Matthews was calling for PFC Lynch to get the Medal of Honor the other day.

83 posted on 04/12/2003 11:13:07 AM PDT by jackbill
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To: cynicom
The pilot got the DFC for landing the plane with all aboard and not giving up intelligence information in the process. It was deserved.

The crew got the MSM, which is a non-combat medal. All combat medals rank higher in my book. She deserves a Bronze Star, probably, depending on her story.

The medals only cost $2 to make. It is the significance that we attribute to them that makes them valuable.

84 posted on 04/12/2003 11:19:59 AM PDT by ScholarWarrior
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To: cynicom
This fact would perhaps argue that Jessica earns something beyond a $25 Purple Heart.

Interesting remark, that.

My dad was a Navy Corpsman who was in the first wave on Iwo Jima. His entire medical team was disabled by one explosion (his partner was killed). Dad was paralyzed from the waist down, and spent eight hours in the ash and sand with the battle raging around him (he took more shrapnel lying there - realized he had a hole in his helmet when he finally got evac) and no one to treat his wounds; he gave himself shots of morphine and tried to stay conscious so no one would assume he was dead.

No one called him a hero. He never thought of himself as a hero. He saved some Marines on that island, and eventually had to save himself - but he was not considered by anyone to have been a war hero. (He was MY hero, but that's another topic.)

I remember seeing the pits and craters on his skin when he had his shirt off. I remember him letting me feel the shrapnel still lodged in his calf.

His "$25 Purple Heart" (all he got, and all he earned) was his most treasured material possession, I think.

My, how times have changed.

85 posted on 04/12/2003 11:23:28 AM PDT by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet (Did you liberals say something? It's all just clicks and buzzes over here.)
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To: ScholarWarrior; cynicom
The medals only cost $2 to make. It is the significance that we attribute to them that makes them valuable.

Thank you for making that point. I was a little surprised to hear the cost brought up.

86 posted on 04/12/2003 11:25:38 AM PDT by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet (Did you liberals say something? It's all just clicks and buzzes over here.)
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To: DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
Back in those days, the Purple Heart cost $5.

My family went thru grief of a brother KIA during WW2. We received a phone call from some person from Western Union and later the Purple Heart. End of story.

We did not begrudge those that lived, all of their medals. Far too many were passed out to far too many for little of nothing. For instance, Lyndon Johnson received a Silver Star. Thus it does not mean a great deal whem some people receive a chest full of medals.

87 posted on 04/12/2003 11:37:10 AM PDT by cynicom
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To: SMEDLEYBUTLER
Hogwash. Why did you fail to mention that Walkers' Medal was restored by Carter if you aren't lobbying? Posting other citations shows that you are being disingenuous in your denial. How about taking up the cause of a real outrage and getting many if not all of Chesty Pullers' five Navy Crosses upgraded to Medals of Honor.

Lobbying for what, Smedley?

To get Pfc. Lynch a Medal of Honor? Or not?

To get Mary Walker's Medal of Honor downgraded to a Meritorious Service Medal? Or not?

To get Douglas MacArthur's Medal of Honor for being caught with his pants down after Pearl Harbor revoked? Or not?

Lobbying Congressional politicians to not play politics with military honor is an exercise in futility because the vast majority of Congressional politicians will put political expediency before military honor every time.

You may get a Congressman to champion the upgrade of an award if they believe that they can make political hay out of it but you will never get Congress to advocate the downgrade of an award if they believe it will have negative political fallout.

Only if you believe otherwise is "lobbying" for such things anything more than an utter waste of time.

So, I'm at a complete loss in trying to figure out just what, exactly, you believe I am "lobbying" for.

Mary Walker's so-called "Medal of Honor" was legitimately revoked in 1917. That is a historical fact.

Just because Jimmy Carter decided that it would be good 1970's politics to railroad it's restoration does not mean that Mary Walker actually earned the equivalent of a modern-day Medal of Honor. The feminist claim that Mary Walker "earned America's highest award" is simply Politically Correct historical revisionism that was compounded by Jimmy Carter's action.

Mary Walker simply earned an award that, at the time that it was awarded to her, had a meaning that ranged the entire spectrum from exceptional gallantry in combat to the Civil War version of the "Alive in '65 Gedunk Medal" to, in her particular case, the Meritorious Service Medal for meritorious non-combat service.

From your hostile reaction to my historical posts, I am sure that you have a dog in some fight on this topic. I just don't see what your dog is or even what your fight is.

88 posted on 04/12/2003 11:42:30 AM PDT by Polybius
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To: SMEDLEYBUTLER
Lt. Osborn was presented the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Meritorious Service Medal (MSM)...

You posted the news blurb of that ceremony without comment.

Just so that I can try to learn what your dog in this fight is, let me ask what your point was in bringing your up this incident and the subsequent awards.

Were you for or against those awards?

One set of dogs claims that he was a hero and that the awards were earned.

One set of dogs claims that he was derelict in his duties for not ditching the plane so that it would not fall into ChiCom hands and claims that the awards were a political whitewash.

89 posted on 04/12/2003 11:56:26 AM PDT by Polybius
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To: cynicom
Back in those days, the Purple Heart cost $5.

I do realize that the price of manufacturing a medal has gone up since 1945, but thanks.

I have to tell you that your "$25 Purple Heart" remark struck me as very cold. That's because I knew what it meant to my Dad.

It reminded me of this:

I had a relative who was a career Army man. He was younger than Dad, and unimpressed with my father's service - saying once during a discussion about the Purple Heart my Dad earned on Iwo Jima: "Big deal. They throw those out like candy."

If they do, that's a problem, in my opinion. When those who receive them don't believe they did anything unusual to earn them, what is the point of having them at all? There is none.

Sad that the standard is becoming so low that a young woman who merely did what was expected of her is being suggested by some for the highest of all honors - and odd that someone who apparently thinks they're worth so little seems to want so badly for Private Lynch to have so many.

Big of you not to begrudge them, though.

(If I'm misjudging your remarks, I apologize. Could be my mood right now.)

90 posted on 04/12/2003 11:56:36 AM PDT by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet (Did you liberals say something? It's all just clicks and buzzes over here.)
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To: DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
Don't pay too much attention to those who judge a military award with it's manufacturing cost.

As Oscar Wilde defined them, a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

91 posted on 04/12/2003 12:30:05 PM PDT by Polybius
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To: Polybius
I won't. Thank you, Polybius. (That's not the first thing you've taught me today on this thread.)
92 posted on 04/12/2003 12:37:08 PM PDT by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet (Did you liberals say something? It's all just clicks and buzzes over here.)
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To: flutters
Maybe the facts surrounding the capture and rescue of PFC Lynch should be determined before recommending appropriate medals. All I have heard is a lot of probably baseless speculation by the media regarding what occurred.

There are standards for various military decorations that ought to be observed or the meaning of the decoration is lost because it is awarded to the undeserving.

It may well be the PFC Lynch should get the MOH, but it shouldn't be because some Judge in West Virgina gets weepy everytime he thinks about Lynch's experience.
93 posted on 04/12/2003 12:45:32 PM PDT by Busywhiskers (Non entia multiplicandia sunt prater necessetatum.)
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To: DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
Cold??? Not at all...

I beleive it was Audi Murphy or some person of his stature that made a statement regarding medals and heros. Whoever it was, said, "The heros are those that did not come back".

To me that keeps "medals" in perspective. In my own experience, I saw far too many medals handed out like candy. Yet, here on the wall beside me I have a list of friends shot down, fifty years ago, MIA, medals, one each.

Cold??? Not at all. Grief, you bet.

94 posted on 04/12/2003 1:50:42 PM PDT by cynicom
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To: DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
I just can't wait for the movie, demi moore "as p.c. lynch" another "rambo" saving hundreds of American soldiers,her weapon blazing, while protecting secret documents that will save civilization. Let's wait to see the facts, (that we are told), before making judgment.
95 posted on 04/12/2003 2:04:32 PM PDT by Bandmo
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To: Polybius
Polybius..

I suspicion most of this has gone over your head.

96 posted on 04/12/2003 2:07:38 PM PDT by cynicom
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To: Polybius
Re the Navy aircraft...

May I assume you have a background in such military intelligence gathering????

97 posted on 04/12/2003 2:10:08 PM PDT by cynicom
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To: cynicom
I have some perspective on this too.

As I explained, my father nearly died on Iwo Jima. Like Pfc. Lynch, he did what was expected of him. Like Lynch, his survival was part personal effort, and part miracle.

Whatever you think a Purple Heart is worth, it was worth something far more than $25 to my father in February of 1945.

For him, the cost was high.

It cost his blood, his hearing, and living his life with Japanese shrapnel lodged too close to his spine to be removed, threatening his ability to walk for the duration of his life.

I still think your crack about it being a twenty-five dollar medal - and your subsequent suggestion that Lynch, a soldier whose valor extends not beyond her own fight for survival (as far as we know) deserves so much more than something you apparently think is nothing but a cheap token or trinket - was disrespectful to every person who ever bled for one, on more than one level.

Even the "lowly" Purple Heart ought to mean something, damn it.

Thank God that to some, it still does.
98 posted on 04/12/2003 2:15:33 PM PDT by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet (Did you liberals say something? It's all just clicks and buzzes over here.)
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To: Bandmo
I could change my mind on all of this as more facts come out, but right now, I'm frankly kind of appalled by the fluctuating standards I'm seeing - Affirmative Action applied to heroism and gallantry.

It does not help women to expect less of them. Maybe that's just me.
99 posted on 04/12/2003 2:19:34 PM PDT by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet (Did you liberals say something? It's all just clicks and buzzes over here.)
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To: DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
Another..at Iwo, age 15!

http://www.homeofheroes.com/jacklucas/3_mcl_story.html

100 posted on 04/12/2003 2:23:08 PM PDT by ErnBatavia (Bumperootus!)
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