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Nothing worth doing is easy.

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A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / Rarely Do I Say This

Rarely Do I Say This

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But here is an awesome piece of news:

President Obama will correct a historical act of discrimination next month when he awards the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest commendation for combat valor, to 19 Hispanic, Jewish and African-American veterans overlooked previously because of their racial or ethnic backgrounds.

The unusual presentation will culminate a 12-year Pentagon review ordered by Congress into past discrimination in the ranks, and will hold a particular poignancy hosted by the nation’s first African-American president.

Even all my right-wing military friends online are thrilled about this. This was a historical injustice that needed to be corrected.

Reader Interactions

45Comments

  2. 2.

    Elizabelle

    @Arclite:

    Maybe not. They have a lot of veterans/military type FoxBots.

    Good to hear this. Bittersweet, overdue, but good on recognizing these veterans.

  4. 4.

    MikeJ

    We should start a pool on the first public figure on the right to call them affirmative action medals.

  6. 6.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Ted Nugent will, I’m sure, have something to say about this.

    I do, also. About time. Heroism should NEVER know base bigotry.

  11. 11.

    kindness

    The usual suspects will now whine about Obama. I tell you I’m seeing the righties getting foaming at the mouth like they do just before an election. If I have to put up with 9 months of that shit I might do something stupid.

  12. 12.

    BGinCHI

    I can hardly wait till Meet the Press on Sunday to see what John McCain thinks.

    Then David Gregory can find out whether he’s for it or not.

  13. 13.

    Petorado

    @Villago Delenda Est: The WaPo said Ted issued an “apology” about that:

    “I do apologize – not necessarily to the President – but on behalf of much better men than myself,”

    … A troll to the end.

    On the other hand, it’s good to see old injustices made right. In a better world this would have happened if not so many of these were posthumous recognitions, but the screw keeps turning in the right direction, at least. Apologies matter, if they are done right.

  14. 14.

    Fuzzy

    FOX NEWS. Why did it take the President so long? Then they will find “a guy” to dispute one of recipients and be shocked about it unless McCain likes it.

  17. 17.

    LanceThruster


    “The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation.”

    – George Washington

  18. 18.

    Sly

    My uncle via marriage was the one Hispanic man in a WWII bomber wing that was almost entirely peopled with Southern whites. This was still during a time when Hispanics/Latinos, for the purposes of deployment, were considered white by the military. He was busted down to Private, IIRC, on three separate occasions for “insubordination” (translation: not responding with “Yes, sir” to some redneck who called him an “uppity Mexican”).

  19. 19.

    dr. bloor

    @LanceThruster:

    Of course, all bets are off if you happen to be the kid of a blah or brown whose best prospects coming out of high school mean military service.

  24. 24.

    coloradoblue

    … a 12-year Pentagon review ordered by Congress…

    Oh, this is going to be interesting! Remind me who was prez 12 years ago. And which parties controlled congress in 2006. And this isn’t an executive order, this is the DOD.

    Do they dare?

    My money is on Yes, they are that stupid and full of hate.

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    On topic: If somebody badmouths Obama for awarding Medals of Honor recommended by the military, is anyone really going to take them seriously?

    Off topic: This big-name venture capitalist dude Tim Draper says he wants to see California split into six states, one of them being Silicon Valley. I’m aware that proposals to break up the most populous American state have been around for a long time, but is there anything to this one?

  29. 29.

    West of the Cascades

    This is great, and it’s good to see that the even though the wheels of justice on these awards ground slowly, they produced a good result.

    Does the Military ever review past Medal of Honor awards to excise them (thinking here of the 20 medals awarded to members of the 7th Cavalry for its December 1890 offensive in southwestern South Dakota)?

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    @Amir Khalid

    Sad to admit there will be way too many who will take them seriously. The ‘Obama is an illegitimate president so has no such authority’ crowd, for starters.

    If Obama developed a universal cure for cancer they’d be against it and accuse him of contravening god’s will, or some other malarkey.

  32. 32.

    cckids

    @Fuzzy:

    FOX NEWS

    Of course they will. But it will be because President Obama is “taking credit for a review started by Bush” (it was started 12 years ago). Ideally, to make it right for them, Obama would resign & let Bush take over, because that would be fair.

  33. 33.

    jl

    From the link

    ” The unusual presentation will culminate a 12-year Pentagon review ordered by Congress ”

    So, this was a Congressional initiative, started during Dub’s first term.

    Will be interesting to see which wingnut news organizations report that, rather than use the coincidence that the review was finished and the medals awarded during Obama’s term as an excuse to score some cheap racist shots.

    Let’s see how Fox News does. If Lush Rimbaugh notices, he will just rave like a maniac.

  34. 34.

    NotMax

    @cckids

    And kind of interesting, isn’t it, that the military could so thoroughly comb through records going back so far, even in cases where records were lost to fire, yet the National Guard couldn’t come up with any more than scattered bits and pieces of Dubya’s records?

  35. 35.

    jl

    @cckids: Just beat me to it on when the review started. If some bogus wingnut news organization does decide to actually report some facts and history, I suppose they will follow the approach you suggest. That will be a little too transparent even for your average half-hearted white bigot, but the dead enders will buy it.

    Edit: If as a commenter above suggested, GW shows up, it will complicate the narrative. The winger news organizations might decide to move on to something else.

  37. 37.

    SamInMpls

    I think Cole is spot on here. Mamet’s army porn show “The Unit” did an entire episode centered around an African American vet from the Korean War being awarded a Silver Star fifty years later. Even wingnuts can embrace diversity when it is filtered through institutions like the military.

  38. 38.

    AnotherBruce

    @Amir Khalid: I find it interesting that these proposals seem to take place in states that come under democratic control. See also: Colorado.

    It’s not going to happen.

  42. 42.

    PhilbertDesanex

    Freepers were about 30% for his, better I than expected. Evidently some of them may have served. Also recommended read: ‘Brothers in Arms’, by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the story of the 761st Tank Battalion, they were way in the Bulge, and then May1945 ignominiously disbanded.

  43. 43.

    RSA

    @Petorado:

    “I do apologize – not necessarily to the President – but on behalf of much better men than myself,”

    Ted Nugent seems not to understand what “on behalf of” means. Quelle surprise.

  44. 44.

    Joseph Nobles

    No, the wingnut take is “Obama taking advantage of military heroes to make himself look good.”

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