From The Wilderness

THE MEDAL OF HONOR

by
James Strauss
United States Marine Corps Retired

I don’t hold and was never awarded the United States military decoration called the Medal of Honor.  For my own combat experiences and what happened ‘out there,’ I have five others descending down from that top one for valor in combat, plus the Purple Heart and Navy and Marine Corps for civilian valor while serving in the Marine Corps.  When I followed the recent video presentation of the country’s former president, and his diatribe about how the “Congressional Medal of Honor, was somehow to be held below the American ‘Academy Awards kind of medal called the Medal of Freedom, I was aghast. Here is the quote: “That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but the civilian version, it’s actually much better, because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead. She gets it and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman.”

That man has disparaged the military time and again over the years and I’ve not enjoyed witnessing that, but this time my astonishment was followed by another emotion, and that was satisfaction. I became happy that I had not won the Medal of Honor.  I don’t need any more lack of care or lack of interest or even lack of attention for having military decorations for supposedly exhibiting courage under fire.   I also hold the California Medal of Valor for courage under fire as a police officer, but who really cares?  It sits in a plastic bag with the rest of those things, tucked down deep into a trunk in the basement to likely be found one day by some great-great-great-grandchild.

The former president’s disparagement of military veterans, particularly those who’ve been decorated for disabled is so glaring in its foundation to me, and those rare other men like me.  The man was a rich playboy when he came out of adolescence. He didn’t want to take the time to go off to war and lose out on any of his wealthy lifestyle.  He might, and I don’t know this, have had a very healthy fear of getting hurt or killed if he went off to war.  It does not matter.  What has happened since he avoided going off to the war has become apparent as I’ve met so many men who know of my background (outside of Lake Geneva I’m known for my war and espionage books) and have come to me to share feelings they cannot share with regular people.  They come in wonder if I hold it against them for not going, as they avoided the draft or volunteering at the time.  Invariably, I tell them the truth.  I am happy to be talking to them instead of their gravestone.  If they’d gone with me, then, like with over ninety percent of my other Marines, they’d be dead.  Real ground combat is that dangerous.  The former president is disturbed because he didn’t go and instead of looking inward to resolve those feelings of guilt and also the fact that he didn’t get a chance to prove himself to be a hero by doing and surviving, he takes it out in resentment toward those who have gone and come back.  One of those avoiders came to me years ago, a man not unlike the former president in demeanor.  He stood in front of me and asked if I didn’t think it was true that the boys and men who went were not indeed less intelligent than those who wisely stayed home.  I stared into his eyes, knowing he could not read what was going on behind mine.  They say I have post-traumatic stress disorder.  In fact, against my better judgment, they diagnosed me with that condition at 100% disabled for life. I felt, and still feel to this day, that I don’t really have PTSD because I finally replied to the man: “Yes, I think you’re correct.”  I then walked away to sit in my car outside the coffee shop, breathing deeply, turning the radio, and hoping to hear a song come out of the speakers that might make me feel better.

The real problem (other than the idiot mass media and the former president keeps referring to the Medal of Honor as ‘Congressional,’ (as it is not called that anymore), is about the future and what conduct and communication by people like the former president cause to happen when it’s time once again to call on men to go out and fight for their country.  I am happy not to have the medal because I don’t have to defend having it, apologize for not measuring up to some billionaire like that Medal of Freedom person, or even admitting I really was stupid to go and get all shot up and lose all those boys (although they will never be truly gone to me).  How do we as a country get our finest to go out there if we’ve established a habit pattern of not only not caring about what they did for all of us or, even worse, treating them badly for what they did?  Why go?  If one has to go, why fight?  If one has to fight then why not lay down, hide, or run?  That becomes a huge problem over time.  It’s not just that man, either.  Out in even the local community, when some people I’ve talked to about what he said, forgive him on the spot, or say he didn’t mean it, or that context is all wrong about understanding what he said.  Those people I now hold in the same contempt that I hold that former president, and it’s the expressed attitude of people such as those that may well end up causing the United States to not really be able to defend itself very well.

I don’t spend all my time living in the past.  I do appreciate those few people who thank me for my service, but they can’t know.  I’m here but, in many ways, I died with my boys done in that awful A Shau Valley back in 1968.  I live on for their memory, my family and friends, and, old as I am, I’m still willing to march to whatever drummer calls if I must go back again because I do so love this country.