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Living MoH recipient possible, Gates says

No living service member has been awarded the Medal of Honor during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That could finally be changing.

On the same day that President Barack Obama presented a posthumous Medal of Honor to Army Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti at the White House, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said reviews are underway that may result in the nation’s top military honor being presented to a living recipient of the current wars.

During a Thursday news conference at the Pentagon, Gates was asked: “Has no one [in the two wars] performed an act of courage worthy of the Medal of Honor and lived through it?”

“This has been a source of real concern to me,” Gates said. “We are looking at this. Without getting into any detail … there are some [award recommendations] in process.

“It is, as everybody knows, a very time-intensive, thorough process. But I would say that I’ve been told there are some living potential recipients that have been put forward.”

Only six of nation’s highest award for valor have been issued during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have lasted 6½ and 8 years, respectively. Four were awarded for acts of heroism in Iraq; Monti’s award brought the Afghanistan total to two.

The 16-year conflict in Vietnam, by contrast, produced 246 awards of the Medal of Honor.

Many have questioned the disparity. In August, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told The Associated Press that the Pentagon argument that the prevalence of roadside bomb attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan has reduced the amount of traditional face-to-face combat, and thus the opportunity for acts of heroism, doesn’t wash.

“It seems like our collective standard for who gets the Medal of Honor has been raised,” said Hunter, a veteran of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The criteria for an award of the Medal of Honor are exacting. Recipients must “distinguish themselves conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of their lives above and beyond the call of duty” in combat — action that, according to a congressional document, must be documented by the “incontestable evidence of at least two eyewitnesses” that leaves “no margin for doubt or error.”

Recommendations for the award go through a rigorous review process that can take as long as 18 months.

Gates, who has bridged two administrations as defense secretary, said Obama’s predecessor wished he could have done what Obama did Thursday.

“I think it was one of President Bush’s real regrets, that he did not have the opportunity to honor” a living Medal of Honor recipient, Gates said.

Related reading

• Calif. lawmaker pushes for valor award review

• Lawmaker wants Medal of Honor review

• CMC: Living MoH recipient may be coming

See Medal of Honor recipients

• Military Times Hall of Valor