Monday, February 04, 2002
A piece in today's Washington Times reports on a coalition apparently predominated by Blue Dog Democrats that seeks to have the Medal of Honor's composition changed from brass to gold and an alloy. I support the military 100%, but I do at least have some questions about this since I'm a little confused. It seems that the Congressional Gold Medal, which is mostly gold and costs about $30,000, is roughly comparable to being knighted by the Queen of England. Meanwhile, the brass Medal of Honor costs between "$29.98" and $70 and often requires the recipient to be dead. The proposed replacement Medal of Honor will cost around $2,000, and will be awarded to all future recipients. I don't think that this will in any way diminish the brass ones, as some seem to think. I do wonder why the Medal of Honor will only cost 1/15 that of the Gold Medal, since it seems that there's some inefficiency in such a price difference. While several veterans' groups have supported the bill, I'd like to know what the current servicemembers think. If they're for it, so am I.
UPDATE: Sergeant Stryker was kind enough to respond to my email asking him what he thought of all this. He says that "The metal isn't as important as the medal," but thinks that it would be a nice gesture to future recipients. That's a position I can fully support.
UPDATE: Sergeant Stryker was kind enough to respond to my email asking him what he thought of all this. He says that "The metal isn't as important as the medal," but thinks that it would be a nice gesture to future recipients. That's a position I can fully support.
