Let me see if I have this straight, if you've been awarded a medal for piloting a drone and a Bronze Star and/or a Purple Heart, the display of those medals on your uniform the Drone Medal will be displayed above the Bronze Star or Purple Heart on todays Armed Forces uniforms.
When I was a kid, my dad, my brothers and I loved to play with the model airplanes in the back yard. It wasn't until I arrived "in country" that I was shot at and it took getting shot at to earn that Bronze Star.
Ray Carrol Banks was given a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for the night he died, the night I kicked Ray out of a guard tower because he was in my way laying on the floor of the tower and I was getting shot at. It was because of that night that Both Ray and I were cited for the Bronze Star. Banks's mother got Rays Purple Heart and Bronze Star at his grave site but only after twenty-one guns were fired.
There are quite a few soldiers who
EARNED that Bronze Star and/or Purple Heart who came home in a black plastic bag. They weren't even given a thirteen fold flag until they were carried off of the plane and put into the ground. They never were in a closed room with a TV screen in front of them showing the view from the camera mounted on the "drone" they were remotely opperating from that room. A model plane that they're controling while telling the troops on the ground where the bad guys are.
Where the heck has the value of "EARNED" honors gone?
Am I right or wrong, do you have to be in range to fly a toy in combat? Do you have to be shot at while a camera acts as you eyes? If not I'd go to the recruiter tomorrow but I'll have to carry my cane, the cane I earned "in country" while getting shot at. Of course the recruiter's only going to tell me that I'm too old and lame.
Put a model plane operator in front of me who's wearing his "Drone" medal above a Bronze Star and/or Purple Heart and he'll experience another reason I carry a "BIG STICK."
