Talk:Medal of Honor

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See also Talk:Congressional Medal of Honor. - Hephaestos 13:03 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Congressional Medal of Honor or Medal of Honor

popularly referred to as the Congressional Medal of Honor

Is "Congressional Medal of Honor" too wrong to use here? It is the most common term for the Medal of Honor. --mav

what I'd like to know is...what does the Congress have to do with this medal? Vera Cruz

That's what I thought. Never mind then. --mav

"Congressional Medal of Honor" is better. That's what it's known as around the world. Oterwise it would need to be "Medal of Honor (United States)" or something else ugly like that. I almost didn't look at the article because I thought it would be about the movie. Tannin

There was a movie by this name? I thought it was Men of Honor. --mav

And a computer game. (I think) Tannin

I think we should at least wait until we have a medal of honor from another country before worrying about it-and if we get that and it has to be Medal of Honor (Ethiopia) then what is wrong with Medal of Honor (United States)?Vera Cruz

"Medal of honour" could easily be mistaken for the generic term, or the game or the movie. WTF - it's not that important. Tannin

It is most definitely Congressional Medal of Honor, so named because the medal was authorized by Congress. -- Zoe

This should be moved back to Congressional Medal of Honor. Pizza Puzzle 13:40 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No it should stay at this its proper title. Rmhermen 14:04 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

There are non-Usian medals of honor. Pizza Puzzle

Two years ago we started asking people to add any non-US medals of honor - no one ever found any. Please give us some examples. Rmhermen 15:00 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

People started calling it "Congressional" because Congress has to approve the awards specially, unlike others which need only be approved by SecDef or lower. Let's leave it at its most correct name until somebody can come up with others - after all we put the city in France at just Paris because 99.9% of refs are going to be to the French one. (Just started Googling, I see an obscure IEEE Medal of Honor, time for the disambig page!) Stan 16:17 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Stan, do you have a ref for that? The Congressional Medal of Honor Society web site says (at "9 JUL 1918"; shouting sic in orig)

The Medal of Honor was born in 1862, but it was the act of 9 July 1918 that defined the future of the award, while further eliminated the Certificate of Merit while establishing the new "Pyramid of Honor" providing for lesser awards (The Distinguished Service Cross, The Distinguished Service Medal, and the Silver Star). A key difference between the levels of awards was spelled out, "That the President is authorized to present, in the name of the Congress, a medal of honor only to each person who, while an officer or enlisted man of the Army, shall hereafter, in action involving actual conflict with an enemy, distinguish himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty." The lesser awards were authorized for presentation by the President, "BUT NOT IN THE NAME OF CONGRESS."

IMO, that doesn't rule absolutely out your version, so i'd like to know before replacing the language that inlcudes "erroneous" with

While legally its name is simply "Medal of Honor", it is usually referred to as "the Congressional Medal of Honor", emphasizing its role as not only the highest US military honor, but also the only one awarded in the name of Congress.

Note that wording suggests by example the markup for WP usage; hope that's not excessively clever.

--Jerzy 19:11, 2004 Jan 5 (UTC)

Interesting - I read the "act of congress" bit somewhere many many years ago, and assumed it was true, but the online sources don't seem to support that, and I think I trust them better than my memory. :-) Any act of Congress would have to appear in the Congressional Record I think, so absence of MoH actions would be a big hint. Stan 20:36, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Is the following accurate for this & US medals in general?: "by the President, in the role of Commander in Chief, based on recommendations passed up though the chain of command" --Jerzy 19:11, 2004 Jan 5 (UTC)

I am an employee at the National Personnel Records Center and can state that every offical instruction we have, from the military service departments, refers to this decoration as the "Medal of Honor". Also, citations from actual service records (of which I have seen several), simply state that the award is for the "Medal of Honor". I have never seen the word "Congressional" used.

Followup to previous note: Would recommend taking the word Congressional out of the description. The Institute of Heraldry offically lists the decoration simply as "Medal of Honor". Here is the link. I dont know if it will work on all computers, as it is a government website.

https://www.perscomonline.army.mil/tagd/tioh/Awards/MOH1.htm

A theory about the Congressional name: Charles Lindbergh seems to be one of the few, perhaps only, awardee who received it through a special Congressional resolution, presumably because he was not in action against a foreign power. Of course, his award might also be the most publicized. Perhaps this led to the widespread notion that it takes an act of Congress for it to be awarded. Ydorb 20:59, Jul 12, 2004 (UTC)

Children of Medal of Honor winners

I believe that one perk for Medal of Honor winners is that their children get automatically admitted to the Military Academies if they so desire. If no one objects, I will place that note into the article before it shows up in Selected Anniversaries. Ancheta Wis 01:23, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Admission to the service academies requires two parts, being qualified and being nominated. Nomination can come through several routes, one of which is being a child of a Medal of Honor winner. See [1] (http://www.usna.edu/Admissions/steps4.htm). Ydorb 19:22, Jul 12, 2004 (UTC)

Army Medal of Honor, Navy Medal of Honor, etc

I believe the authorization for the award by joint resolution of Congress, July 12, 1862 was only for the Army Medal of Honor. The Navy Medal of Honor originated some years later. This should probably be clarified by someone. I'll do it when I get around to it. Ydorb 19:22, Jul 12, 2004 (UTC)

I'm also going to be doing a massive change in the pictures on this artcile to show all three versions of the Medal of Honor as well as pictures of the original medals which look quite different from the ones we have today. User:Husnock 12 Jul 2004

Congrats to us all!

Just wanted to give a big congratulations to the people who have adding to and editing this article the past couple of days. It is really starting to look sharp User:Husnock 14 Jul 04

Husnock, great new images! But, you should label the image page with the appropriate copyright notices (See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags), otherwise the image could get deleted in the future by some copyright paranoid people. Meelar/Rmherman, thanks for catching and fixing my Byrd error. Ydorb 20:50, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)

Will do from now on. Ive never had an image deleted on me. Most of the pictures I use, for my medals and badge page, are on the database at the National Personnel Records Center and are free to the public. I guess that would be Public Domain? User:Husnock 14 Jul 2004

You can do that with the {{PD}} tag or with the specific U.S. government tag {{{{PD-USGov}} Rmhermen 22:08, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)

MOH and Iraq

Hi,

Altrough hundred of thousands of troops have been engaged in Iraq for more than a year, I don't see any Medal of Honour for the Iraq War. Is this article unupdated ?

Thank you

No, there just have been no Medals of Honor awarded since Somalia. Not in the Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan, or Iraq. I find it odd myself.

Rmhermen 00:46, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. And did any silver star or bronze star has been awarded since Vietnam ? (I'm sorry, I'm not an English speaker)

Silver and bronze stars are lesser medals. They have been awarded frequently, even some in Iraq this last year. Rmhermen 01:13, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)

I found here ( http://photojournalismstock.com/iraq%202003/source/feat10.html# ) that a soldier (from 3rd infantry division) is on the way to be awarded the MoH for its job in Iraq. The soldier name is Paul R. Smith, he was killed in action on april 4, 2004. Other source : http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1006552/posts

Yes, Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, 33, was bestowed a Medal of Honor posthumously. From http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/10801732.htm?1c, the medal will be presented by President Bush to his family sometime in March. Zscout370 20:53, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I started an article for him in anticipation of this, see Paul Ray Smith. Ydorb 00:11, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)

Peer Review

I submitted this to WP:PR. This is the first step to featured article status. There was one comment:

How many women? Blacks? Hispanics? Breakdown by branch of service? Also, where is the Unknown soldier's medal kept?

I cannot figure out where the Unknown soldier's medal is kept. Please help. I also don't know if there are racial breakdown statistics. I will write something about the racial discrimination in MOH awards and reviews that have been done to rectify it, unless someone beats me to it. Ydorb 18:55, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

I do not know where the Unknown Soldier's Medal is kept either, however, the Congressonal Medal of Honor Society has a list about how many Blacks, Hispanics, services, etc. Zscout370 01:26, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Medal of Honor flag

Future MOH winners will also recieve a MOH flag. There is an open competition for the design of the MOH flag. The competition ends October 22, 2004. See the Federal Register: September 7, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 172)] [Page 54134-54135] Ydorb 18:55, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

Seven Medals of Honor stolen from Yorktown museum

Have the seven Medals of Honor reported stolen on 30 June 2004 from the Yorktown aircraft carrier's Medal of Honor museum at Patriots Point been found?

I saw a report that the medals were stolen sometime between 7:30 pm Sunday 27 June 2004 and 7:30 am Monday 28 June 2004. The museum door was not secured and it was unclear why the door was left unlocked.

The report said the cover of the display case in the museum was a tacked-down glass lid. Whoever stole the medals managed to jar the lid, breaking off a triangular piece of glass. After that, the thief could reach inside easily and steal the medals.

--Anthonys 05:55, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Marine Corps Medal of Honor

I feel it neccesary to clarify a reversion in that we should keep the info about the Marines recieving the Navy medal in this article. As a military historian, I have run across several instances where a website, publication, or some person has referred to the Marine Corps Medal of Honor. There is such animal, but a great number of people believe that there is. This article should make that clear.

The recent reversion also was necessary in that, by remvoing the header title, it tied the USCG MOH data right into a section dealing with fradulent MOH display and criminal charges. it should be separated to avoid confusion.

Hope it doesnt start an edit war, but the USMC data should stay -Husnock 22 Nov 04

Quote

This should be moved to Wikiquote. I'll do so once I figure out how. Ydorb 02:05, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

"The Medal of Honor is a small, five-pointed star that hangs from a blue ribbon, but it comes at such a terrible price that it is an unquestioned tribute to the bravery of anyone who wears it." Robert Rawlings, The Pueblo Chieftain. Pueblo, Colorado is the site of a National Medal of Honor Memorial. Until recently, Pueblo was unique as the residence of four recipients of the medal.

Vietnam unknown soldier

I removed this becuase the medal was revoked when the identity of the unknown soldier was confirmed. Husnock, I'll leave this alone until tomorrow to avoid edit conflicts. The Featured Article Nomination has raised some good issues that we should address. Please do as much as you can. Ydorb 01:07, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

MOH Imposters

I feel this article should not serve as a list of Medal of Honor imposters. There are several websites that already do that (putting the links in might be a good idea) 1 (http://www.pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies.htm). I say that since naming people could draw fire as we might not know all the facts and it is also might even be against Wiki policy. Also, if such a list were to be placed on Wilk, it would have to be complete and updated regularly or someone could say it was unfair in that it did not list all those who were MOH imposters.

All in all, this article is about the Medal of Honor and putting up a negative list of people sounds like a very bad idea. Lets stay away from that. Husnock 24 Nov 04

Pension benefit update

I updated this prior to creating an account, I apologize. The pension amount was taken from the VA's current Special Benefits Allowances page. Since the prior amount was way off I decided to update. I hope I did it right. Out180 05:41, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Disambig Possibilities

Since there are a large number of people who want the computer game disambig notice in the article, I thought I would put on the table the question of possibly making the whole article into a disambig. It could say something like “A Medal of Honor is a high decoration which may be bestowed for extraordinary feats, extreme bravery…” etc, etc. Looking at the article we have at least five different meanings, those being the main medal, the computer game, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, and the Cardenas Medal of Honor. Not saying I am going to go out and make the disambig page, just thought I would bring it up. Husnock 29Nov04

Fixing duplicated recipient lists

While adding the category for "Military Decorations" (because I was there and I was shocked that the MOH wasn't called out there as well as in "Awards and decorations of the U.S. military" and I think it does deserve special treatment, as do those who have earned it) I discovered that there are both a category page and a list page on wikipedia for recipients. I'm going to merge them as a category so the individuals' articles can be categorized thusly, and make the list name a redirect to the category so it can be used in "See also" sections (the MOH page itself had been given a category link, which is wrong, because the MOH is not a recipient of itself). It's going to take a bit of time as I'm doing this in bits between tasks at work, and because wikipedia is rather unstable today anyway, so please nobody go all Audie Murphy and revert the list/category links here for a while. Blair P. Houghton 20:21, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, please don't do this. Lists serve there own purpose allowing extra detail, organization and unwritten articles that cannot be added to a mere category. And the Medal of Honor should certainly be included as the head of the category. People can still be added to a category even if they are on a list; there is no conflict. Rmhermen 21:28, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

I see the point of having addional notes in the list, but the list is an incomplete set of the category entries, so it's not really a "list of (all) MOH recipients," which is kind of implied by its existence. And the information in the list is available at the recipient's page. Maybe it should be moved to "list of well-known MOH recipients" or "list of notable MOH recipients", though I can hardly think of a qualifier that is sufficient to distinguish those in the list from those in the category, because MOH recipients are ipso facto well-known and notable. Having two entities with semantically interchangeable identifiers that serve different purposes just seems untidy and confusing. And there are ways to make the MOH article link to the MOH-recipients category without putting the MOH itself in that category; that's just categorically wrong. Ahem.... So I'd vote we move the existing "list of" to a more descriptive name, and make "List of MOH Recipients" redirect to the category. I haven't touched it yet (work got hairy), so I'm open to suggestions. Blair P. Houghton 21:54, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Alrighty then. The only change to this page proper is that I've removed the category link to the recipients-category page; the medal isn't a recipient. The link to the list-of-recipients page remains. I changed the list-of-recipients page to say a little better that it's a subset and where to find the more extensive set at the recipients-category page. I canged the category page to xref to the list page so people know it's there, too. I think the topology and semantics are cleaner this way. The whole exercise does point up a problem with Wikipedia categories, though: you can't embed one as a link in the text without doing something ugly like making it an external link (e.g., Category:Medal of Honor recipients (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Medal_of_Honor_recipients)) complete with the crufty little external-link iconoid. At least, not any way I could find (I bet a little html in the link spec would let me make that icon 0x0 in size...). Blair P. Houghton 23:58, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Aha! Finally found the wiki markup language reference page (it's not obvious from the help structure of wikipedia, or I'm not seeing the wood moths for the trees). The clue is the leading colon on the link spec. Category:Medal of Honor recipients - neat, sweet, petite. Blair P. Houghton 00:06, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Just for the record, I've been working to keep the category and the list in sync. --Carnildo 03:20, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oops

I made a minor edit, but forgot to list what it was. For the record, I changed "Unknowns" (which links to a disambig about unknown quantities in math, but has nothing about Unknown Soldiers to "Unknown Soldier") --Jpbrenna 02:57, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Stanton or Stimson?

The second paragraph of "Evolution of awarding criteria" says, "During the Civil War, Secretary of War Stanton was in a bind for troops. He promised a Medal of Honor to every man in the 27th Regiment, Maine Infantry who extended his enlistment beyond the agreed upon date. Many stayed an extra four days and then were discharged. Due to confusion, Stimson awarded a Medal of Honor to every man in the regiment, in all 864 different members."

Which is it, Stanton or Stimson? Fixed - Stanton. Stimson wasn't born until two years after the war. Rmhermen 01:46, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

MoH Rosette

Missing image
Moh_rosette.gif

Here is an image I uploaded of the rosette. Enjoy. Zscout370 02:24, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Repeating Text

I notice there is some repeated and out of date text. The out to date text refers to the fact that the last action to have soliders awarded the MoH was in in Somalia, but we list on our page a solider will be awarded one (posthumously) in the next few weeks. Zscout370 04:38, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I cleaned up some of the repeated text in the 'appearances' section which also appeared in the section above it. -Zonath 07:03, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

Lack of clarity: Medals rescinded

"The commission, led by Nelson Miles, recommended that the Army rescind 911 medals."

While implied latter it is not explicitly stated whether the medal where rescinded or not. Rrreese 22:18, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If they were, then I heard somewhere President Bill Clinton restored them. I need to find some data to back it up. Zscout370 22:45, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

They were rescinded. See for instance, [2] (http://www.usarak.army.mil/alaskapost/April1Story12.asp) At least one was later restored, Mary Edwards Walker by Jimmy Carter. Ydorb 16:34, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

Very disappointing

I lost a little bit of respect for Wikipedia when the news that Paul Smith got the MOH, in a national ceremony at the White House, was dismissed without comment on the "In the News" suggestions. I could see why some might think its only news in America, but how interesting that when the Victoria Cross was last awarded, up there it was on the News page. I wonder if our admins are mostly from Canada and England...In any event, nothing more to say about it and the decesion is respected. Dont mean to sound bitter, just voicing an opinion. -Husnock 17:48, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think that Wikinews picked the MoH story up, but the main page was overshadowed with the loss of the Pope, the Kyrgz Revolution, Prince Renier's health. However, I think they chose us as the Featured Article for that one day due to the MoH being awarded to Paul Smith. Zscout370 17:51, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Bad arithmetic somehow

Quoting the article: "3,460 medals have been awarded to 3,409 different people. Nineteen men received a second award". That only adds to 3428 medals: there is a discrepancy. I myself wouldn't know where to begin solving it, unfortunately. Bill 11:18, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

There are also the nine medals awarded to various Unknown Soldiers, which gives 3437 medals, but yes, there are a few unaccounted for. --Carnildo 18:03, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

The statistics are from the US Army Center for Military History [3] (http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/mohstats.htm), if anyone wants to try to clarify. Ydorb 18:06, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

I see that MOH stats page [4] (http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/mohstats.htm) contradicts itself, saying both that " The total number of Medal of Honor recipients is 3,408" and then two lines later, "Total number of Medal of Honor recipients: 3,440" Ydorb 18:10, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Probably the first number is the number of people who got it, and the second number is how many were awarded. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 18:59, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Featured Picture Candidate

Hey yall: I posted the Medal of Honor flag image at WP:FPC. The actual page is at Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Image:Medal_of_Honor_flag.png. Let's see how this works out. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 01:06, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Lead

Please expand the lead, one sentence is not enough, especially for a FA. Basically, this article has no lead and thus is in FARC danger.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 19:39, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I expanded it a bit. I know it is still pretty short, but at least it got the ball rolling. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 23:45, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Tnx - it is much better now. One more technical note - external links should be removed from main body, preferably moved to notes/references and linked with Wikipedia:Footnotes. Btw, you may want to take a look at Wikipedia:Peer_review/Virtuti_Militari - it's an article quite similar to MoH. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 10:34, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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