"Jerry Foster" fired this volley in
. net:
It is very hard to tell what a person's service was actually like,
just looking at a list of service medals. One gets them for just
being there. Someone just passing through gets the same medal as a
soldier going through hell on the ground (witness the pile of awards
a typical high-ranking officer usually sports...).

True enough, Jerry, but it works both ways.

I was in Nam, on "detached" duty under a Marine chicken colonel. We had
turned over our boats, and were installing defensive perimeters around
small U Minh Forest op-bases to use up our tour.

During Tet night, 1971, I picked up a grenade fragment in the face.
Nothing bad, although it missed my right eye by only about 1-1/4". I got
medi-vac'd to Bin Thuy air base for surgery. After about an hour on the
table, they surmised they weren't going to find the piece, and closed it
up -- other more serious injuries were waiting.

When I got back to my base, our colonel said in about these words, "No
metal, no medal." So I don't wear Uncle George's portrait, even though a
cosmetic surgeon took out the piece in 1992.

I'm not sour about it. A lot of guys lost limbs or worse. A lot of guys
got Bronze Stars for just being where they were at the time.

The ribbons and pins aren't as significant as they seem, one way OR the
other.


Jerry
Viet-Nam Veteran
United States Navy

Same... River Rat.

LLoyd