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Recluse
Well said :awesome:
Thanks :goodpost:
Let's never forget :drinks:
QUOTE=Recluse;1290102]Dan,
I have to respectfully, but forcefully disagree.
The CMH is the medal in which you're nominated by your fellow soldiers or sailors or airmen. Typically it is not a medal in which your unit commander puts you in for. In my day, the Air Force, Navy and Army Cross (second highest decoration) were the same way.
To refuse the medal would be to rebuke your fellow soldiers--and that would be a tremendous dishonor to them. A slap in the face, if you will.
Accepting the medal means you're accepting it from your fellow squad/unit members. The President is simply the highest ranking officer presenting it.
The honor in receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor is NOT in who presents it to you, but rather in who nominated you for it.
Let's never forget that.
:coffee:[/QUOTE]
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The Medal is nominated for by the soldier's colleagues, and awarded by the Congress, and presented by the President. The President is simply the final agent of the process. In imagining what >I< would do in a similar situation, I would look BO straight in the eye - no smile - hear everything he had to say - then, talking to the reporters/TV/&cetera, I would point out that I was a part of a team that had a job to do, and I did my part as best I could, along with the others on the team, and that I didn't do anything any one of them wouldn't have done. And that I would simply be the agent of a country's recognition of the training, morale, conscience, and dedication of the military. I would not thank BO - he didn't award the Medal, Congress did.
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Want to bet BHO does NOT salute the medal again.