Redstate

Or, "ANOTHER CASE OF BEAUCHAMPING"

By Jeff Emanuel Posted in Anti-war liberals | embedded reporting | potheads | War — Comments (16) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

According to the Associated Press, Josh Gaines is giving back his "Iraq War medals." This, says some "Students for a Democratic Society activist" in Madison, who helped organize some protest at which Gaines will formally "mail [his] Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and National Defense Service Medal to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld," "will be a very big deal" to "many Americans."

Really?

Read on . . .

First of all, when I read this story to the group of people I'm sitting with right now -- a Lieutenant, a Sergeant First Class, a Staff Sergeant, a Sergeant, and a Specialist in the active duty US Army -- and in the place I'm sitting right now -- in Samarra, Iraq, with a unit (which these gentlemen are members of) that has served 14 months of its 15-month tour here (and has lost twelve men during that time) -- the result was not horror, but laughter. Genuine, serious laughter that somebody would be such a publicity-seeking idiot as to do something like this at an orchestrated protest.

The laughter -- and scoffing -- grew as the soldiers here heard that the medals that Gaines (who was once an Army Reservist, and who -- according to the AP -- "served a yearlong tour in Iraq between 2004 and 2005" in which he "spent his time guarding two military bases and issuing ammunition to soldiers but never fired a weapon") was returning were, as mentioned above, the "Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and National Defense Service Medal," of which, according to another supposed Army veteran, "most veterans of Iraq have earned at least one."

Here's a minor detail for your consumption (and one which the AP writer, in his utter ignorance of all things military -- typical -- does not have the knowledge to point out): both of those medals are automatically given to every single person who goes to Iraq. In fact, the second one -- the National Defense Service Medal -- is given to every single soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine who serves a single day on active duty in a time of war -- which, in today's military, means since the Global War on Terror started on September 11, 2001. Yep -- the NDSM isn't an Iraq medal; every active serviceman receives it. The GWOT Expeditionary Medal is automatic for every single person who deploys to the combat zone, be it Iraq or Afghanistan, so that one is, at least, related.

The big point here, though, is that those are the automatic medals. Virtually every single serviceman who deploys to Iraq and conducts themselves with a modicum of professionalism while there (in other words, who is not such an utter dirtbag that they are simply awaiting the proper paperwork to be administratively removed from the Army) receives another award for their tour. Depending on what they did, that could range from an Army Commendation Medal to a Bronze Star Medal with Valor, or could be any one of several other things. Either Mr. Gibbons is holding out on his liberal friends (and holding back gifts from his good friend Rummy), or he was such a poor soldier in Iraq that he received no award for his entire tour -- just the automatic medals, which recognize no award-deserving achievement whatsoever.

That's not all, though. According to Mr. Gibbons himself, he "was given an “other than honorable” discharge [from the Army] after failing a drug test." (this fact lit up the room here at the Patrol Base in Iraq with even more derisive laughter, as one of the NCOs sarcastically pointed out that Gaines "sure didn't have an axe to grind for that!")

Further, according to the Associated Press article's quote of a soldier "who served with Gaines in Iraq," he "was always challenging Army superiors."

“[T]hat’s the thing that makes him stand out,” said the source.

And now we arrive at what we might alternately call the "moment of truth," or the "confirmation of Beauchamping." Once again, the Left, in their quest to find soldiers whom they can use to both delegitimize the war and demonize the American soldier, has grabbed a total loser and is flaunting him not only as the rule among his peers, but as an example to be followed.

A pothead who was so poor at his job that he received no award for service in Iraq, and who was kicked out of the Army for drugs.

They really think that this is what the US military is made of.

The soldiers in the room with me here -- who, in addition to the automatic NDSM and GWOT Expeditionary Medal, will be taking home awards (three Bronze Stars with Valor, one Bronze Star, and one Army Commendation Medal with Valor among the six of them) -- take strong exception to that.

And so do I.