Dusty in here.
- Thread starter Maggot
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A very good read on this is Roberts Ridge, which covers this battle and also the larger picture. Read it a couple of years ago and am rereading after watching this video yesterday. There was some amazing heroism displayed here, and some amazing 'politics' surrounding the award of the MOH to Chapman and Slabinski.
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Glad to see an injustice was corrected.
There was valor enough for a second MOH in that event.
Friend and I were talking yesterday how it seems the mil is being stingy with its awards, why did it take Bellavia so long to get recognized for some hairy shit.
Unsure if it was due to bias by senior commanders that see these small unit actions as somehow not "real" combat as compared to larger scale battles circa Vietnam and prior.
Also seems to be some "deflation" of awards based on rank - an E3 does something that would be Silver Star worthy but ends up with an ARCOM with V because "Well he is an E3".
My criteria, how I would forward awards recommendations......
You fuck up some enemy in witnessed individual combat - Bronze Star.
You are witnessed saving someones life while actively engaged its a minimum Silver Star.
You save someones life and fuck up a bunch of enemy doing it Crosses and above.
Not so weighted to how many you killed but through your actions how many of our guys did you save.......that is what these guys fight for.
There was valor enough for a second MOH in that event.
Friend and I were talking yesterday how it seems the mil is being stingy with its awards, why did it take Bellavia so long to get recognized for some hairy shit.
Unsure if it was due to bias by senior commanders that see these small unit actions as somehow not "real" combat as compared to larger scale battles circa Vietnam and prior.
Also seems to be some "deflation" of awards based on rank - an E3 does something that would be Silver Star worthy but ends up with an ARCOM with V because "Well he is an E3".
My criteria, how I would forward awards recommendations......
You fuck up some enemy in witnessed individual combat - Bronze Star.
You are witnessed saving someones life while actively engaged its a minimum Silver Star.
You save someones life and fuck up a bunch of enemy doing it Crosses and above.
Not so weighted to how many you killed but through your actions how many of our guys did you save.......that is what these guys fight for.
thanks for the video. If anyone rags on the airforce they need to watch that video. He basically left the seals in his wake, breaks my heart when the narrator said he was fighting alone for 45 minutes 
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He basically left the seals in his wake, breaks my heart when the narrator said he was fighting along for 45 minutes
When the book I referenced above was written (2005) the preponderance of the evidence pointed to it being a blue on blue (the men seen firing at each other in the video were actually two insurgents, and I believe the official investigation supported this theory). But the author did bring up the possibility of the 'Lazurus' effect, that either Chapman or even Roberts recovered from their mortal wounds enough to continue the fight.
In the intervening years with new video and better image processing, the evidence points to this being Chapman continuing the fight, which of course reignited the questioning of why he was left behind.
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Wow.
Perspective to what I may have thought was a stressful day.
Perspective to what I may have thought was a stressful day.
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