Friday, January 06, 2006

Home of the Brave

Here's someone worth knowing. His name is Master Sergeant Suran Sar, an immigrant from Cambodia, naturalized U.S. citizen, with twenty years in the Army (15 years as a Green Beret Special Forces soldier). While fighting terrorists on the border of Pakistan, Master Sgt. Sar won the Silver Star for fighting and killing the bad guys and saving his special forces teammates, all after being shot in the head!

If you're not up to speed on what a silver star is, here's my own explanation of the military's award system:

DescriptionAir ForceArmyMarines
Showing UpBronze StarPat on the BackPaycheck
BraverySilver StarBronze StarPat on the Back
Notable BraveryAir Force CrossSilver StarBronze Star
Exceptional BraveryMedal of HonorDistinguished Service CrossSilver Star
Sacrificial BraveryTransfer to USMCMedal of HonorNavy Cross

As you can see, the Air Force has a reputation for being quite liberal with the chest candy, and the Marine Corps quite stingy. The War on Terror has just recently passed the Korean War for number of medals awarded (seriously) and in related news, Air Force personnel are all banking left due to the weight of that side of their uniform (they do look a little like third world dictators).

I've heard an excellent explanation for how critieria is determined for the Medal of Honor: The Medal of Honor cannot be awarded for an action done under orders. In other words, you can't get it for doing your job bravely; it must be truly above and beyond the call of duty.

3 comments:

Thumper said...

If anyone wants to look at the source code and figure out why my table is preceded by about two pages of blank space, let me know. I can't figure it out -- but I'm just learning, so I may be missing something really simple.

Jared

Anonymous said...

Jared

It has to do with the line breaks ((br /)) you have between the table markers ((table) & (/table)). Tables do not need this unless you want to use them inside a cell. If you do want to use them in the cell then they need to be placed between the cell markers ((td) & (/td)). If you don't need them then remove each line break in between the table markers ((table) & (/table).

Later
David T.

P.S. I had to replace "<" with "(" to be able to submit this post.

Thumper said...

Thanks David