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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.

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.

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.

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

In your opinion, should every solider who fired a weapon and was wounded, receive more than a Purple Heart? I'm not trying to be rude, just curious about how you would treat the other soliders.

Hmmm... let's see - you think that because the people who's aircraft was captured by the Chinese got medals, that Lynch deserves one too? Do I have that right?

This isn't a 'We gotta be fair and give medals to everyone' situation - That pilot, who managed to land a severely damaged aircraft, SAVING the lives of 22 OTHERS certainly deserves some recognition - the DFC is a pretty damned good way to do it...

Give her a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star, and the POW Medal - anything beyond that would cheapen the higher awards for anyone that got them, or will in the future be awarded them... I just don't see any PROVEN valour, and until I see documented valour, or at least something that reflects that she did MORE than her job, I'll stick to that opinion.

She did her job - what was expected of her. Period.