Bummer, seems to me..that mission, with the verified BDA, rated at least a DFC.
and this I think gets to the root of what I tend to think about medals.
As individuals, most of us don't want awards for what we consider "just doing our job/what I was trained for", which is fine. Not many of us signed up for the medals. But as leaders I think, in general, that people worry too damned much about the "sanctity" or potential inflation of an award and less about the need to recognize folks who work for us who do their jobs in an outstanding fashion.
Although most would profess to not care, all the citations attached posts above, kept over the years, shows to me that the recognition is welcomed and appreciated by the individual. Do i think that we should hand out Medals of Honor and Navy Crosses like candy? Not at all. But maybe some more specific action air medals would be a good place to star for real missions conducted well with real results.
For some reason, our naval culture seems to want to go against giving out awards. I got huge push-back for the chiefs when I was looking for nominees for the monthly safety pro "award". The safety pro doesn't come with any perks, just a nice piece of paper with the skipper's John Hancock on it that the sailor can show off to mom. But every month the chiefs would piss and moan that we were giving an award for people doing their job. Even when I said "give me the name of a kid who's doing his job well" they'd still pitch a fit. Of course, awhile later when maintenance has been working hard for a long time the skipper says he wants to give guys some NAMs for the effort. No names were provided until the skipper asked for them. The boss was willing and ready to recognize guys for working long hours to make missions happen, but the desk just said "that's their job"
If we give an award and the sailor acts humble, that doesn't mean the award wasn't appreciated or warranted. It just means that the awardee has a good attitude. Sure he'll be embarrassed when his buddies give him a hard time for being a golden boy and he'll say things like "I don't care", but I'm sure he'll still proudly tell his wife or mom and dad about it.
