Effort to Award Alex's Long Overdue Congressional Medal of Honor

[Skull-1]

Originally posted by Guppy35
It just feels a bit like American Idol to me.  Get enough votes and you get the medal.  We have to go back and look at all of them if we're going to start changing things 60 + years later.

The Navy attempted to in 1947.   They effectively never finished Vraciu's...and each time they've made a half-hearted attempt they got it wrong.   Seems to me we owe it to all of them to pick up where things left off.   If we can fix Alex's we can fix others, too.

The Army went back further than 60 years in some cases and did the right thing.   The Navy can do the same.    The time frame doesn't matter, nor should it.

I'm not going to discuss this further because I feel like I'm trivializing the man's accomplishments.   I don't for a second think any of us can say someone doesn't deserve a particular award.    That being said...

Admirals Buie, Snowden, Litch, Mitscher, Spruance, Radford, and Clark all felt the award was earned.   Considering all of them were there when it happened I defer to their judgment.

If you don't care to help that's your right.   This is for those who do.

Thanks to the OP for pointing out the site.    Please help by writing your elected officials.    More information will be added to the site so keep checking back.   I have a large stack of stuff to transfer to it--it will take awhile to scan it all in.

Regards...

[OSU]

Originally posted by Saxman
Anyone know if they every upgraded Dick Winters' Silver Star to a MOH? This one wasn't an error, it was outright politics.

If you read the book, Band of Brothers ( by Stephen E. Ambrose), you'll find out that Maj. Richard Winters was awarded the DSC for his actions on D-Day, when he and twelve other men captured a battery of four 105mm cannon that was firing on the men that were coming ashore on Utah beach. Four of Winters' men were awarded the Silver Star (Compton, Guarnere, Lorraine, and Toye) the others were given the Bronze Star (Lipton, Malarkey, Ranney, Liebgott, Hendrix, Plesha, Petty, and Wynn).  Col. Sink(the CO of the 506th PIR) tried to give Winters the CMoH but only one man per division was allowed to be given that medal for the invasion.
The fact that Winters wasn't given the CMoH was just because Lt. Col. Robert Cole recieved it before Winters for leading a bayonet charge.

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Originally posted by OSU
If you read the book, Band of Brothers ( by Stephen E. Ambrose), you'll find out that Maj. Richard Winters was awarded the DSC for his actions on D-Day, when he and twelve other men captured a battery of four 105mm cannon that was firing on the men that were coming ashore on Utah beach. Four of Winters' men were awarded the Silver Star (Compton, Guarnere, Lorraine, and Toye) the others were given the Bronze Star (Lipton, Malarkey, Ranney, Liebgott, Hendrix, Plesha, Petty, and Wynn).  Col. Sink(the CO of the 506th PIR) tried to give Winters the CMoH but only one man per division was allowed to be given that medal for the invasion.
The fact that Winters wasn't given the CMoH was just because Lt. Col. Robert Cole recieved it before winters for leading a bayonet charge.

Amazing isn't it???   Winters was a brave sonostudmuffinun, no question about it.   All of those guys were.

Winters is still with us is he not?   That's a petition I'd sign anytime, anywhere.

[OSU]

Yes, Winters is still alive. If you watch the Band of Brothers movie, you can see him in the special features and some of the men I mentioned in my post at the begining of the episodes.