July 2014 - Argghhh!

Friday through Sunday I took a trip to Denver, Colorado for some Rotary business. I chose to rent a car and drive, vice fly. It's marginally cheaper, I don't get groped by strangers, and... I like to look at the world. Friday, I drove out via I-70 and stopped at those places I've been driving by for years and said to myself, "Self, you really need to stop and take a gander at that someday." Well, Friday was that day. But this post isn't about that. It's about *yesterday...

ISIS Torches 1800-Year-Old Mosul Church After Expelling Christiansmap perfectly, but, "Hobby Lobby! Otherwise... *crickets* ISIS Torches 1800-Year-Old Mosul Church After Expelling Christians.

Good Golly! There are *41* Medals awarded for actions on this day - and not one of them is a posthumous award! 1 July is a very busy day for the Medal in the 19th Century. During this time the Medal of Honor was the only available option, so many of the Medals awarded during the 1863-1900 era would be Bronze Stars, Silver Stars, and Distinguished Service Cross/Navy Cross today. As usual - we start with the Civil War and the two big battles occurring on July 1st - Malvern HIll and Gettysburg.

Today we open with period of Indian Campaigns. As is usual for the Indian Campaigns - if a fight generated one Medal, it tended to generate several, indicative of the lack of options for recognizing heroic conduct during the era. Battle of the Big Dry Wash , Arizona, is one of those fights. CRUSE, THOMAS Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, 6th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Big Dry Fork, Ariz., 17 July 1882. Entered service at: Owensboro, Ky. Birth: Owensboro, Ky. Date of issue: 12 July 1892...

An unusual day - we don't have any Civil War Medals. There are only two Medals awarded for actions that exclusively occured on July 6th. We skip the entire 18th century, and the Medal goes 80 years before being awarded for actions on the 6th of July, in the Solomons Campaign of the Pacific Theater in WWII. *VAN VOORHIS, BRUCE AVERY Rank and organization: Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy. Born: 29 January 1908, Aberdeen, Wash. Appointed from: Nevada. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity...

What's not to like? That said... the Admiral just said on national television, "Stupid stuff, dumbstuff, mind-bogglingly stupid stuff." Making absolute claims like that is simply asinine. Nobel said that about dynamite, the Brits said that about Dreadnoughts, Douhet said that about bombers. Just... dumb. Even if the system is a great leap forward. Sigh. Of course, "This time it will be different!" Navy railgun could revolutionize the way US fights wars.

Today is a rare one for the Medal. There are no posthumous awards. There was a time, during the Vietnam War and earlier, when we actually awarded the Medal to living people. Starting with Somalia and moving forward, however, it seems the unwritten policy is that it's the Medal of Posthumous Honor, as yesterday's announcement of the awarding of the Medal to SFC Jared Monti simply reinforces I simply do not believe that there have been no deserving men or women who managed to survive a Medal...

Now, of course, I wonder who is working the parallel countermeasure development? Besides our enemies? Because once someone knows it can be done, they'll start trying to do it. FIRST EVER Guided .50 Cal Bullet