SASC leaders oppose rank of UAV/cyber medal - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

SASC leaders oppose rank of UAV/cyber medal

The big guns have now rolled out to shoot down Pentagon plans for a new medal for drone operators that would rank ahead of the Bronze Star and Purple Heart awards for troops who see direct combat.

The top Democrat and top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee have joined an increasingly loud chorus of current and former service members opposed to where the new Distinguished Warfare Medal sits in the order of precedence.

They are asking Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam combat veteran, to reconsider ranking of the medal approved by his predecessor, Leon Panetta.

“We trust that the judgment you gained from your combat experience as an enlisted soldier in Vietnam will inform your decision about the appropriate precedence of the DWM in relation to the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart,” says the letter signed by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee chairman, and Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the committee’s ranking Republican.

Hagel said Friday in a letter to major veterans groups that he supported the decision Panetta had made in February, and defended where it stands in the order of precedence.

“It in no way degrades or minimizes our nation’s other important awards or the tremendous sacrifices of our men and women who earn these prestigious recognitions,” Hagel said. “It recognizes a specific type of contribution that is vital to the defense of our nation.”

Hagel received two Purple Hearts, an Army Commendation Medal, Vietnamese Gallantry Cross and Combat Infantryman Badge during his service. He did not receive a Bronze Star.

In the joint letter from Levin and Inhofe, released Monday, the two senators say, “Like so many of the veterans groups who have expressed their displeasure with this recent announcement, we are very concerned about the message that this decision sends to those brave veterans of our nation’s wars since 1941 whose heroism and meritorious service has been recognized by the Bronze Star Medal.”

“Although we are supportive of this new medal, we are concerned that it is given precedence above awards earned by service members for actions on the battlefield,” the letter says.

Levin and Inhofe said the controversy over the medal is similar to what happened in 1942, with creation of the Air Medal.

“This caused a strong adverse reaction by the ground troops, particularly the infantry riflemen who suffered the heaviest losses and endured the greatest hardships,” the letter says.

In response, the Bronze Star was authorized in 1944 for service in close personal combat with the enemy, based on the recommendation of General of the Army George Marshall.

“Placing the DWM on the list of precedence above the Bronze Star Medal is likely to cause the same type of adverse impact to morale that was recognized by General Marshall almost seventy years ago,” Levin and Inhofe say.

Levin and Inhofe are the latest and most powerful of a large group of opponents, and they are well placed to force the issue by including a provision reducing the ranking of the award for drone operators and cyber warriors if the Pentagon does not act on its own.

They do not make a specific threat of action in their letter but there are bills introduced in the House and Senate, supported by major veterans groups, that would rank the DWM behind the Purple Heart.