Chest Full of Ribbons
Richard B. Myers and I both enlisted in the Air Force in December, 1965, but we took different career paths and earned different numbers of service ribbons.
As an avowed opponent of the Vietnam War, I enlisted in the Air Force Reserve in order to avoid the draft. For volunteering to serve in a time of War, I was awarded a ribbon. In basic training I had a chance to win a marksmanship ribbon on the rifle range, but I mistakenly shot at the target of the man on my right rather than at my own, so I was not rewarded.
Four months of basic training and technical school, some monthly weekends, a summer camp and 18 months of recall to active duty did not earn me any more ribbons to my knowledge, so when my air force career ended, I had one chest ribbon. You may recall from the campaign flack about Vietnam Vets Against the War throwing their medals at the White House, people talking about medals and ribbons interchangeably. I don’t know whatever happened to my ribbon, but I did not throw it at the White House. I didn’t even know they were going to do it, and I doubt my one little ribbon would have made much impact.
Myers made the Air Force his career. You may recognize the name, as he is currently serving as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I made it to the lowest Sergeant level and he made it to the highest four star General level. A short military biography of Myers includes a picture of him wearing a chest full of ribbons. When I have seen him on TV testifying before Congress, I am amazed because he has more rows of ribbons than I have ever seen. I thought there might be ten rows of ribbons, but the picture shows nine, two with two ribbons and the other rows with three ribbons. Twenty-eight ribbons in 40 years is not as astounding as I thought. If I had kept up my one ribbon in two years pace, I could have earned about 20 in 40 years.
General Myers always looks like a milk toast to me, but reading his little bio shows he had 600 hours of combat flying. That works out to a little less than an hour and a half a month when counted over his 40 year career. Troops in Iraq are living in combat zone conditions around the clock, so they would amass 600 hours in 25 days. I don’t know what ribbons they are earning, other than the Purple Heart when they are wounded, which means there have been at least 20,000 of those awarded for the Iraq War so far.
When Dight Eisenhower was a four star General he only had two rows of ribbons, as shown in this picture. How did Myers end up with so many more than Ike? I think the answer is that the military has since Ike’s day created many more reasons for a person to be awarded a medal, in order that "lifers" as we short term service people call the career people, can impressively fill their chests. In the Air Force in particular, I suspect top line officers can earn ribbons by directing their personal pilots to detour across the corner of a war zone on the way to a meeting in some safe place.
I heard today that General Myers is planning on retiring in September. If that is true, it does not seem right that he should be able to retire at a time when the military has "stop loss" orders in place to prevent people from being allowed to leave the service at the end of the term of their voluntary commitment. It seems to me the top brass should have to stick it out as long as the grunts are stopped from leaving.
My favorite 20th Century General is George C. Marshall who played a vital role in helping defeat totalitarian aggression in WWII, and then went on to serve as Secretary of State after the War and won the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize for his Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. Colin Powell went on From Joint Chiefs Chair to become Secretary of State, but George W. Bush and his chicken hawks made sure Powell had no chance for A Nobel Prize.
I sometimes wonder whether the man on my right at the firing range was so impressed by all the hits he had on his target that he decided to become a lifer. I guess it could not have been General Myers, since he went in through the ROTC as an officer, while the guys shooting with me were all just enlisted reservists.
As an avowed opponent of the Vietnam War, I enlisted in the Air Force Reserve in order to avoid the draft. For volunteering to serve in a time of War, I was awarded a ribbon. In basic training I had a chance to win a marksmanship ribbon on the rifle range, but I mistakenly shot at the target of the man on my right rather than at my own, so I was not rewarded.
Four months of basic training and technical school, some monthly weekends, a summer camp and 18 months of recall to active duty did not earn me any more ribbons to my knowledge, so when my air force career ended, I had one chest ribbon. You may recall from the campaign flack about Vietnam Vets Against the War throwing their medals at the White House, people talking about medals and ribbons interchangeably. I don’t know whatever happened to my ribbon, but I did not throw it at the White House. I didn’t even know they were going to do it, and I doubt my one little ribbon would have made much impact.
Myers made the Air Force his career. You may recognize the name, as he is currently serving as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I made it to the lowest Sergeant level and he made it to the highest four star General level. A short military biography of Myers includes a picture of him wearing a chest full of ribbons. When I have seen him on TV testifying before Congress, I am amazed because he has more rows of ribbons than I have ever seen. I thought there might be ten rows of ribbons, but the picture shows nine, two with two ribbons and the other rows with three ribbons. Twenty-eight ribbons in 40 years is not as astounding as I thought. If I had kept up my one ribbon in two years pace, I could have earned about 20 in 40 years.
General Myers always looks like a milk toast to me, but reading his little bio shows he had 600 hours of combat flying. That works out to a little less than an hour and a half a month when counted over his 40 year career. Troops in Iraq are living in combat zone conditions around the clock, so they would amass 600 hours in 25 days. I don’t know what ribbons they are earning, other than the Purple Heart when they are wounded, which means there have been at least 20,000 of those awarded for the Iraq War so far.
When Dight Eisenhower was a four star General he only had two rows of ribbons, as shown in this picture. How did Myers end up with so many more than Ike? I think the answer is that the military has since Ike’s day created many more reasons for a person to be awarded a medal, in order that "lifers" as we short term service people call the career people, can impressively fill their chests. In the Air Force in particular, I suspect top line officers can earn ribbons by directing their personal pilots to detour across the corner of a war zone on the way to a meeting in some safe place.
I heard today that General Myers is planning on retiring in September. If that is true, it does not seem right that he should be able to retire at a time when the military has "stop loss" orders in place to prevent people from being allowed to leave the service at the end of the term of their voluntary commitment. It seems to me the top brass should have to stick it out as long as the grunts are stopped from leaving.
My favorite 20th Century General is George C. Marshall who played a vital role in helping defeat totalitarian aggression in WWII, and then went on to serve as Secretary of State after the War and won the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize for his Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. Colin Powell went on From Joint Chiefs Chair to become Secretary of State, but George W. Bush and his chicken hawks made sure Powell had no chance for A Nobel Prize.
I sometimes wonder whether the man on my right at the firing range was so impressed by all the hits he had on his target that he decided to become a lifer. I guess it could not have been General Myers, since he went in through the ROTC as an officer, while the guys shooting with me were all just enlisted reservists.
posted by Tom Blake | 5:30 PM
2 Comments:
Tom,
Amusing article. As I was reading it, I kept expecting you to make some comparison between boys in the 60's joining the reserves and remaining safe on the one hand, and boys and girls in the 90's joining the reserves and finding themselves very unsafe.
John from Phoenix
When I was in the Reserve, I was an Inventory Management Specialist, supposedly trained to use massive mainframe computers to track inventory. After attending technical school on the subject following basic training, we never got involved with any such work on our monthly weekends or at our summer camp. I think the only Air Force Reservists who actually knew how to do anything were the flight crews and mechanics who had to actually get planes up and down safely.
As the Vietnam War buildup became more unpopular, Congress put limits on the spending for the War. When our spy ship, the Pueblo, was seized by North Korea, supposedly in neutral waters [later investigations have indicated it may very well have violated North Korean waters], President Johnson used it as an excuse to activate many National Guard and Reserve units, supposedly as part of a national defense threat. What then happened, is that these reserve people, including me, were put in duty sections with regular military people who gave them on the job training. Once the reserves were trained to take over the stateside jobs, the regulars were sent to Vietnam - a clever way of getting around the Congressional limit on Vietnam War spending, since the payroll of the reservists was paid out of the defense budget rather than the War budget.
Nowadays, it sounds like these National Guard and Reserve Units may be better trained than in our day, but some individuals are so old and out of shape, it is questionable how well they can actually perform in a war zone. These reserve type units are usually populated with more established and settled people who enjoy getting away from their civilian routines to be weekend warriors, whereas the active duty regulars tend to include a lot of young, poor folks trying to get away from troubled areas and earn some educational credits, or immigrants trying to get fast track US citizenship. In my day, the Reserve and National Guard were largely people like me, young college educated types trying to legally avoid the draft.
Some things have not changed much since 1968. We are still screwing around about the evil North Koreans, our Wars started on questionable grounds soon become unpopular, and most people killed in our military service are young and poor. I don't think I even knew anyone personally who died in the Vietnam War, but it still affects me very deeply emotionally whenever the subject comes up. I served with young, regular Air Force guys after the recall and got to be good friends with many of them. Though the Air Force did not suffer that many Vietnam casualties, I know that the young Americans killed in Vietnam were like the people I served with in the Air Force and when I think of them dying, or being disabled physically and emotionally, I get very sad, not just over their deaths, but over the stupidity of it.
It is harder for me to relate to the young Americans dying in Iraq. I don’t personally know any of the young people in the service. None of my children is involved, nor would any of them have wanted to be. I still think it is shameful and sad when I see the faces of the Americans who died in Iraq at the end of the PBS news hour, but it does not affect me emotionally like the people who died in “my” war. The sheer numbers involved play a role also - in Vietnam over 50,000 Americans were killed.
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