Medal inflation

The United States Army, perhaps conscious of the founding fathers' democratic principles, was sparing with its medals. Some distinguished generals including the Civil War leaders Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman wore few if any medals on their uniform.[7] Indeed, the US Army had no medal to recognise valor on the battlefield until the Civil War when the Medal of Honor was introduced.[4] The Medal of Honor was the only such medal until the US involvement in the First World War when a number of other medals were introduced.[4] Controversy over the number of medals issued dates back to at least the Second World War. During the early US involvement in North Africa two US generals visited the front and issued 60 Legion of Merit medals. These medals criteria should have limited them only to very senior officers and the majority of the 60 issued were outside of the criteria. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt disapproved of this action but did not veto the awards.[3] The Second World War as a whole saw a significant increase in the number of medals issued to individual servicemen.[7]

General Colin Powell stated that his award of the Legion of Merit was devalued by medal inflation during the Vietnam War

A large number of service awards (for "time served") were introduced following the Second World War, which increased the number of medals servicemen could expect to receive.[4] The Vietnam War brought about the use of military bravery medals as a means of raising force morale.[5] Historians Richard A. Gabriel and Paul L. Savage state that "medal packages" were common in which an officer received a set of medals merely for holding a certain rank or appointment; leading to a reduction in the perceived value of these medals.[5] Later, US General Colin Powell described the practice saying that:

the Legion of Merit I received? It might have meant more to me in a war where medals were not awarded so indiscriminately. I remember once, as division G-3, attending a battalion change-of-command ceremony at one firebase where the departing CO was awarded three silver stars, the nation's third highest award for valor, plus a clutch of other medals, after a tour lasting six months. He had performed ably, at times heroically. He was popular with his men. Yet, his troops had to stand there and listen to an overheated description of a fairly typical performance ... The departing battalion commander's 'package', a silver star, a legion of merit and air medals just for logging helicopter time, became almost standard issue."[6]

Tim O'Brien, who processed awards in Vietnam for his unit, said of the time: "we dispensed awards - purple hearts, one and the same for a dead man or a man with a scraped fingernail; bronze stars for valor, mostly for officers who knew how to lobby".[5]

One award singled out as an example of medal inflation is the Army Service Ribbon, awarded for completing basic initial training, introduced by the US Army in peacetime in 1981. The 1983 Invasion of Grenada has also been cited as an example: some 8,600 campaign medals were awarded despite only 7,200 troops actually serving in the country. The New York Times also notes the awarding of combat medals to seamen of the USS Vincennes who shot down a civilian airliner, Iran Air Flight 655, in 1988 and the issue of a Purple Heart wound medal to a paratrooper who suffered heat stroke during the 1989 United States invasion of Panama were controversial. The Gulf War of 1990–91 saw almost 3.5 million US service members awarded the National Defense Service Medal, though the majority remained in the United States during this time.[7]

A study in 1994 showed that there was some disparity between the services with regards the frequency of awards. The United States Air Force issued 287 decorations per 1,000 service members in that year, the US Navy 148 and the US Marine Corps just 70. At the time there was pressure on the Marine Corps to increase the number of medals issued to "catch up" to the other services.[7]

Retired Colonel David Hackworth was critical of medal inflation he perceived during the War on Terror

The conquest of Iraq in 2003 drew complaints from some that the number of medals awarded was out of proportion with the danger experienced by the troops and that bravery awards were more likely to be issued to officers than enlisted personnel.[5] Of the 26 Silver Stars awarded for the 2003 capture of Baghdad 4 were awarded to colonels, 11 to captains and just 11 to NCOs, none went to privates; of the 104 Bronze Stars with valor device, 32 were awarded to officers and 72 to other ranks (only 4 of whom were privates) and of the 274 plain Bronze Stars 149 went to officers, 133 to NCOs and just 3 to privates. The Purple Heart, which is awarded automatically for being wounded and so perhaps is more reflective of the danger individual soldiers experience was awarded 88 times, only 10 times to officers, 36 to NCOs and 42 to privates.[5]

The US Air Force came in for criticism for the number of medals awarded during the invasion: some 69,000 medals were handed out, significantly more than the army (who awarded 40,000) despite that fact that army personnel were, in general, posted to more dangerous locations. The ratio of bronze stars awarded per fatality in the US Air Force was 91:1 and in the army 27:1.[5] The US Marine Corps took active steps to limit the number of medals awarded during the invasion and was praised by some at the time for having "kept the inflation in check"; it awarded just three bronze stars per fatality suffered.[5][3] Some critics noted that the air force awards, on average, twice the number of medals per service member that the US Navy does.[7]

A noted critic of medal inflation, Colonel David Hackworth was particularly critical of the air force for awarding the Distinguished Flying Cross to a pilot for a mission which missed its target in Baghdad and killed 16 civilians. He compared this to what would have been needed to receive the medal in the Second World War: "in World War II, when I saw a Distinguished Flying Cross, that meant the guy had made 25 or 30 missions over dangerous places like Hamburg or Berlin. Those places sometimes had 50 percent casualty rates. Now, they give medals out to guys who fly bombers invisible to radar whose bombs miss Saddam and kill civilians in a restaurant. It's an outrage".[6] There were in fact a relatively large number of Distinguished Flying Crosses awarded for the invasion: between its establishment in 1927 and 2002 only 3,300 of the medals had been awarded but between March 2002 and February 2004 463 were approved.[3]

Once the war settled down into the counter-insurgency phase the number of medals awarded decreased significantly. Up until 2009 the rate of Medals of Honor awarded was just 0.1 per 100,000 service members, significantly under the ratio in the Korean War (2.3) and the Second World War (2.9). The reasons cited for this were that the technological development of warfare had reduced the number of face-to-face engagements with the enemy; that the shift by the insurgents towards improvised explosive devices, mortars and sniper attacks away from standard infantry tactics had also reduced the number of traditional engagements and that the awards system had been made more rigorous.[2]