I'm pretty sure the CIA has been operating helicopters for some time as well. By that notion you and I shouldn't get any recognition either. Guys in the CIA know they're not going to get a lot of recognition for their work. It comes with the territory.
But to those of us in the uniformed services there's always been the incentive/reward/recognition of some sort of fabric and brass reward for a job, whether combat or other, well done. Not only do these awards serve to highlight and recognize and individual, the truly examplary awards go on to lie in history as testimony to future generations of that individual's honor, bravery, sacrifice, or baddassery.
To be fair, the MAJ was writing in an AF specific journal. It's not like he was airing his grievance in the NY Times or 60 Minutes. As I said earlier, the USAF Predators, regardless of what you may think about UAVs and the USAF, have made a contribution to the current wars. Why shouldn't their operators be given some sort of recognition for their contribution? And why shouldn't this MAJ challenge USAF leadership to provide him and his fellow operators for their contributions to war effort?
It's not as though their efforts are some sort of admin support that you have to stretch to see the impacts for. these guys weren't doing log runs, making donuts in the DFAC, or making ppts for some staff somewhere. They were KILLING BAD GUYS.
Now I fully admit that they aren't in any real risk of combat injury, so I don't necessarily think they should get an air medal or even a combat V, because it's hard to argue "valor" from the safety of a box, but they should get some sort of recognition for their efforts. In WWI the Air Medal was created to make pilots feel better about themselves. Maybe they should get a "UAV Medal" with a hellfire device for killing johnny al-quaeda.
His "combat risk" vis-a-vis terrorism CONUS is a ridiculous reach and, like I said before, completely debases any decent point his article might have had. I might as well earn air medal points riding COMAIR because I'm at risk of a terrorist attack. He should have just stuck to his literal guns.