Purple Heart

16 May

If you get injured in combat you receive a Purple Heart medal. General George Washington himself instituted the tradition of giving this prestigious medal to our wounded Soldiers. I had the privilege of being invited to an awards ceremony for a few Soldiers a few days ago. Just three days after I rode in the medical helicopter, we had another situation where a handful of our men were caught on a mountain by a group of bad guys. Five of our men took cover and returned fire. Air Force jets were called in to give "suppressive fire" to the enemy, and they flew overhead protecting our guys until reinforcements could arrive. They said it was an awesome sight to see those jets flying extremely low over trees and mountains trying to scare the enemy away. All five of the US Soldiers survived, but a few were injured. One was from my Unit. He was flown to my base and stayed in the hospital two days before they flew him to Germany for additional medical treatment. He was in good spirits and doing well when he left. The medical facilities here are pretty good, and those guys deserve a ton of credit for what they do and how many lives they save. In fact, if you walk through the halls of this base hospital (which is pretty large), you will see many of the rooms occupied by local nationals who are either sick or injured themselves. We will treat anyone who needs it -- including the locals and sometimes the bad guys. It reminds me of old episodes of M*A*S*H, where Hawkeye worked on everyone, too.

Anyway I will attach a few shots of the Purple Heart ceremony in the hospital room. The Commanding General and his Sergeant Major delivered all the medals while another member of his staff read the citation out loud. The whole room comes to attention (except those who are in hospital beds!). I felt pretty honored to have been invited. It's one of those awards/medals you really don't want to win!