my little act of pettiness...

the army has recently created an award called the Combat Action Badge that can be awarded to someone "who is personally present and actively engaging or being engaged by the enemy, and performing satisfactorily in accordance with the prescribed rules of engagement".

i found out yesterday that i had been submitted for, and approved to wear the award. i've got mixed feelings about this. on the one hand, i have a little problem with the concept of the award in the first place, and the related CIB. both awards are for soldiers who were engaged by the enemy and took appropriate action. in my mind, taking appropriate action is usually a good idea if you want to live. it's no guarantee that you'll survive the experience, but it sure improves your chances. appropriate action might be "take cover and return fire", or "proceeded at maximum rate of speed through the kill zone", or "decisively engaged the enemy". all of these things are better than "just stood there, dumbfounded, and was struck in the chest by 20+ rounds fired by the enemy". a key piece of a soldier's job is to be prepared to engage an enemy force, so it seems weird to me that we reward someone for just doing their job. the next thing that really bothers me about the CAB is that it's being awarded to people like crazy. in fact, this comic strip came out while i was deployed, poking fun of both the high rate of CAB's being awarded and the high promotion rates. they're being handed out so quickly, and with such disregard as to whether or not the individual receiving the award truly deserves it that the award is losing whatever meaning it might have.

lots of people are riding along in a helicopter or are a passenger in the back of a vehicle when it was fired upon. they had no idea they were shot at until after the engagement. what was their appropriate response? that they just kept sleeping through it all? or they are on the base when mortar rounds landed so far away as to be just a minor inconvenience, the dull "thump" woke them from their sleep. yet these people are all submitting paperwork just as fast as they can for the badge.

so, it's kinda funny to me, that even after all the bad-mouthing i've done of the award and many of its recipients over the last year, that i would be so proud to hear that it had been awarded to me. and in a weird way, the thought process is "if those jackasses got one, then i sure as hell should get one". it is a career enhancer. by itself it's not much, but it shows people i've been over there and (in theory) have been shot at and didn't lose my cool. it lends a little credibility to people who are meeting me for the first time and reading my uniform. they see a pair of wings, they see that badge, the rank vs. my apparent age, the combat patch on my shoulder... we're all guilty of first impressions, and in the military sometimes you're forced to make some snap judgements about people based on what you see. you're thrown into a mixed bag situation and have to get a job done in a hurry.

i know where i've been, i know what i've done. usually that's enough for me. or i say it is. but i guess i'm not above enjoying the fact that others know as well.