It is time for the country to honor the living.
The Vietnam War was the last time that a living soldier was nominated and awarded the Medal of Honor. For some reason .... since then .... the Pentagon and the Presidency has made the decision to not award this honor to any living soldier. I believe this is a shame since many soldiers have acted courageously .... with bravery and honor .... and who have survived to talk abut it .... and yes .... who deserve such a recognition.
A Medal of Honor recipient will give a face to a war that many Americans now have a distant relationship with, and it will bring home the sacrifices that many of our brave men and women go through everyday. It will also change the dynamics (even for a brief day) the coverage of the war, and the message that we are always being bombarded with when it comes to wars like Afghanistan. When the war is often portrayed as a long story line of mounting casualty lists, operations and logistics, successes and failures .... a Medal of Honor ceremony to a living recipient will be a welcomed change.
Awarding the Medal of Honor to a deserving and living recipient will also be a boost to the morale of our own soldiers .... a recognition of their service, their sacrifice, and now a living symbol of what they must go through when they are deployed to a war zone.
But even with this long neglect of giving the highest honor to a living soldier, I personally expect President Obama to be awarding such an honor in the next six months. Such a presentation would be significant for President Obama, whose own relationship with the military has been tested since he assumed the office, especially since firing General McChrystal.
Will this be a good thing .... I believe it will be.