the subject of the Medal of Honor came up. There was a captain there, I believe he was a mustang and he had 'taken his pack off'. He had been an NCO before and was very possibly going to be one when he retired, so why not? He was a wartime officer that figured he was probably going to be reverted back to his previous enlisted rank.
A lot of people fail to realize it, but the Medal is awarded for a specific action.
We discussed the number of people that were awarded it and did not do well in life afterwards. Airman 'Snuffy' Smith came up and we laughed like hell. Smith had been an unlikely awardee. He was a foul-up before he was awarded it and was a foul-up afterwards and the only MOH awardee I know of to get busted from staff sergeant to private afterwards.
There had been a picture of Smith in the local paper being led to the military induction center in handcuffs as he had been offered either a jail term or induction into the service.
Awardee Gregory 'Pappy' Boyington was once quoted as saying,"Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum."
One Vietnam War awardee had been shot and killed while robbing a store a few years back. Another mentioned awardee had problems later on also.
I was the only one there that wasn't a career soldier so I mostly kept my mouth shut and listened.
The captain opined that if he for some reason became a recipient he would resign immediately...before it was awarded and then find a place to hide. "I wouldn't want that millstone hung around my neck," he said.
"Think of the expectations some poor bastard would have to try to live up to," said a platoon sergeant. "His life isn't his own anymore."
Another pointed out that an awardee had been asked about it by a general officer and had replied, "Sir, I wish people would stop asking me and reminding me about the worst day of my life."
A couple of the senior NCOs said they'd hang in there the next couple years and retire the instant they were eligible and vanish as best they could.
It was pointed out that the medal would probably prop up a sagging career and give someone another stripe to escape the up or out policy so he could retire.
The captain said that "There ought to be some kind of pension to go along with it (there is now, about $1600/month but I don't believe there was at the time) to let the poor bastard live with a little dignity and not disgrace the medal instead of getting shot and dying in an alley." It was a reference to Dwight Johnson, an awardee who died while robbing a store.
At the time IIRC I was a fresh PFC when I heard the conversation and wondered why they thought that way. Later I understood.
Things like the Medal make one's life change and not necessarily for the better.
Many years later my mother-in-law read of the passing of a WW2 MOH awardee in the local paper. He'd had a screwed up life of sorts and mused to me, "I wonder why he did so well in the army but was such a mess afterwards?"
I remembered the conversation from back in the day and thought to myself that I couldn't explain it to her in a way she would understand.
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