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Dedicate award to hero

Chief Warrant Officer 4 Douglas Womack’s letter hits right on target [“Recognize past service,” Aug. 11]. One of our Army values is the obligation to do what’s right, legally and morally.

The cost to produce the Combat Action Badge is cents, but its value is priceless to a generation of men and women whose sacrifices were written off by a sanctimonious media and venomous American public when they came home from war. We should make it retroactive to at least Vietnam, if not also Korea and World War II.

Let us remember why Gen. Peter Schoomaker initiated recommendations for a CAB: to recognize those whose duties placed them in the same combat hazards as the infantry and Special Forces. There are many men and women still alive today who are deserving of this badge.

There is a relative in my family whose documented actions in combat are deserving of the CAB. He served with honor during his tours in Vietnam. I would be proud to pin his long-deserved CAB on him.

But the bureaucratic answer is that it would be too time-consuming to officially file all the awards. When did we adopt the philosophy that if something is too hard to do, let’s not do it?

The people who complain that this would be too onerous of a task don’t realize the morale factor and boost it would provide to tens of thousands of men and women who came home to an American public that didn’t care about their sacrifices and scars.

Until then, let us do what some of us did with our airborne or air assault wings on graduation day: have your own Combat Infantry Badge, Combat Medical Badge or CAB mounted on a plaque with the words “I dedicate this to my hero” and give it to a deserving veteran who, in a fair world, would rightfully be awarded his own.

Maybe it will never get on their DD 214s, but they will know it came from someone who recognized their sacrifices.

Capt. Brian Ellis

Fort Bragg, N.C.