Is The Global War On Terrorism Service Medal An Armed Forces Service Medal?
A 19-year-former Marine private completing his kickoff month in the Fleet Marine Forces had to go to his nearest post commutation to buy a medal this morning. Officially, this medal recognizes his support for operations to counter terrorism after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In reality, everyone gets this medal regardless of their task in the military machine, or whether they performed any tasks that had anything to practise with bringing terrorists to justice, either at their home station or while deployed overseas. No ceremony accompanied this purchase (unless y'all count uniform inspections from the Marine's burn team leader, team leader, and platoon sergeant to ensure that his new medal was affixed to his Service "Charlie" compatible shirt with the same precision with which he aimed his service rifle on qualification day). In fact, no written commendation accompanied this medal, either. This routine, performed continuously across the United States armed forces for close to 2 decades, has become then perfunctory as to get essentially meaningless.
Information technology is by time for the Department of Defence force to finish awarding the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. Standing the electric current practice of awarding the medal to every service member who completes 30 days in an operational unit, regardless of their participation in any deployment or operation related to counterterrorism, devalues their service and hinders the military's widespread understanding of the electric current strategic reality.
Napoleon famously recognized that "a soldier volition fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon." Though mayhap intended cynically, his words are an incisive commentary on homo nature. Medals are a part of war machine civilization, and although most service members will act outwardly to the contrary, most would admit among themselves in private that they do in fact care virtually decorations – or at to the lowest degree did when they were young. Perhaps the best evidence of this is the value American lodge assigns to armed forces service, and even the incidences of "stolen valor" among those who never served themselves. Standing to award the GWOT Service Medal to service members in this mode – equally a sort of military participation trophy unaccompanied past any charade of ceremony, respect, or cultural appreciation for its meaning – perversely devalues their service. Medals are also a way for the military to honour its history, both individually and collectively. That service is now beginning to take on a much dissimilar class than during the zenith of the Global War on Terrorism, however.
Counterterrorism and animus operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and endless other climes and places have saturated the U.S. armed forces's civilisation for an unabridged generation. The Trump Administration's 2018 National Defense Strategy rightly recognized that "inter-land strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the master concern in U.S. national security." Senior Section of Defense leadership should not farther delay in officially punctuating the widespread U.S. military machine focus on counterterrorism and animus by formally catastrophe the eligibility for the GWOT Service Medal. Standing eligibility for the honor prolongs institutional connection to the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. It hinders widespread cultural comprehend of the realities of strategic contest with Red china that our strategic documents profess, precisely when the calibration and scope of this challenge need full attending.
Of grade, despite the United States' unceremonious withdrawal from Afghanistan, so-called over-the-horizon counterterrorism operations will go on. Many of my friends nevertheless deploy to the Middle East, Fundamental Asia, Africa, and elsewhere as members of special operations units that continue to hunt terrorists abroad. This is non the status quo for which the GWOT Service Medal was intended, however. This vastly smaller number of personnel who will keep to participate in, or directly support, operations against terrorist organizations should continue to be eligible for the GWOT Expeditionary Medal and other named campaign decorations. These awards are far more prescriptive in their temporal and geographical eligibility criteria than the GWOT Service Medal, carry much more significance, and do non unduly prejudice the wider military machine civilization against the shift to great power competition.
As America continues to procedure the end to its widespread involvement in Afghanistan, the Section of Defense would practise well to align its awards policy with its strategic priorities and end application the GWOT Service Medal. By ending the practice now, while the armed forces and the larger national security institution are still more often than not in a moment of strategic inflection, it can preserve what award and significance remain intrinsic to the GWOT Service Medal for those that have earned it, and show all the nineteen-year-old Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen, and Guardians that they confront new challenges in the defense of the nation.
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Austin Dahmer is a Marine veteran and a recipient of the GWOT Service Medal. He is a national security annotator, a graduate student at Georgetown University, and a graduate of the U.Southward. Naval University. The views presented are his own.
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Is The Global War On Terrorism Service Medal An Armed Forces Service Medal?,
Source: https://armedforcesconnect.org/2021/10/08/its-time-to-stop-awarding-the-global-war-on-terrorism-service-medal/
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