Yes, our soldiers are magnificent, but Harry’s wrong to say they should get a medal for being wounded
A22-year- old lieutenant who commanded a platoon in one of Britain’s modern wars stepped on a mine and lost a foot. His life was wrecked by that single ghastly moment: he has since had no decent job, no marriage, not much happiness or fulfilment.
But should such a man, an example of the battlefield tragedies of which we have seen all too many in the past few decades, receive a medal to mark his sacrifice, displaying society’s compassion?
Prince Harry apparently thinks so: he has lent his name to a campaign to decorate all those who are wounded while wearing the Queen’s uniform.
It is easy to see why he feels this way. He himself served as an apache pilot in afghanistan, where hundreds of young soldiers became casualties.
Inspired
There are men living in Britain today still not out of their 20s, yet facing the prospect of a lifetime as amputees after encountering an Improvised explosive device planted by the Taliban.
The Prince has made the cause of wounded servicemen his own, and inspired the Invictus Games to allow them to show what they can achieve, despite their injuries.
It seems a fine idea for the country to coin a medal for such men — and women — to show the nation’s gratitude for the price they have paid for service in the name of us all.
or is it? Military chiefs are implacably opposed.
This is not, I believe, because they are brass-headed brasshats insensitive to the cause of our wounded servicemen.
It is because they place a proper value on decorations, which depends on their rarity. Commanders are determined not to see them become devalued, as happens in so many countries.
The United States is conspicuous among those nations which distribute gongs to its warriors as freely as ration candy.
long- serving american soldiers in full- dress uniform can scarcely stand up straight for the clanking rows of medals on their chests, surpassed only by those of african dictators. Since 1932, the U. S. has conferred an award on every man who receives a wound at the hands of an enemy — the Purple Heart, of which two million have been distributed, including most recently 35,000 to men who have served in Iraq, and another 8,000 for those in afghanistan.
British campaigners now want our own nation to do likewise, yet many veterans flinch from the idea. First, everybody gets one, heedless of whether they lost both legs or took a splinter in the bottom.
I am currently researching a book on the Vietnam War, and encounter many cases where obliging medics treated some trivial injury and filed a report triggering a Purple Heart — because a man who could boast three qualified for an immediate transfer Stateside.
In other words, tens of thousands of american veterans who suffered very little are today entitled to wear the medal, in a fashion that seems insulting to others who endured terrible wounds for identical recognition.
yesterday I discussed the idea that we should adopt american practice with a serving officer who threw up his hands in dismay.
‘Before we know where we are,’ he said, ‘ people will demand the “wound medal” because they claim to be suffering from PTSD [psychological after-effects of war service].’
everyone who serves in a theatre of war comes home with a campaign medal, which many earn the hard way. Beyond this, however, the British armed Forces take pride in issuing gongs sparingly, because commanders want to make sure that they mean something.
only a special few are cited for bravery or distinguished service, starting with a so-called Mention in dispatches (which does not confer a medal), then moving up through the Military Cross, distinguished Service order (DSO) and their Naval and air Force equivalents to the tiny handful who have won Victoria Crosses (VC) since World War II.
The critical factor about almost everyone who wears any of these medals is that they have earned them by some quite exceptional deed of command or courage.
We dub the discs and crosses on people’s chests decorations, as if they hung on a Christmas tree. They might better be called distinctions, because they salute people who have done things beyond the common reach.
on battlefields, most people do not behave like heroes. Few are cowards, but I remember an american World War II infantry officer saying, in terms that are true of all armies in all conflicts: ‘Ten per cent of your company carry your attack, staying out there in front all the way to the objective. another 30 per cent come pretty close behind; then the rest sort of straggle in later.’
Think of Wing Commander Guy Gibson, who won a VC for his extraordinary leadership of the May 1943 RAF raid on the ruhr dams. Most of the lancaster crews flew low over a dam just once, to drop their bomb; Gibson made the run four times, to draw the Germans’ fire.
Exceptional
Hardly any of us have it in us to be dambusters, but notice Sir William Purves, a tough little Scot, now 85, who was chairman of HSBC in the days when it was a globally respected bank.
as a 19-year-old 2nd lieutenant with the Commonwealth division in Korea in 1951, he fought off a Chinese attack with such fierce courage that he became the only conscript National Serviceman ever awarded a DSO.
In the 1982 Falklands War, among a host of amazing deeds, I always felt a special respect, verging on reverence, for the royal engineers who groped by night through the argentine minefields to mark paths for British infantry attacks.
and so the story goes on to the present day, with new generations of brave young men and women doing further fine deeds in afghanistan and Iraq.
The proper definition of a hero — and how often that precious word is abused — is somebody who risks or sacrifices all for a higher purpose. That is what many military decorations seek to recognise.
In the 21st century, however, we constantly confuse heroes and victims. I defer to no one in my respect for those who have been wounded in Iraq or afghanistan. Many show high courage in learning to live with life-changing injuries.
Cheapened
But it seems mistaken to suggest that all those who suffer should be awarded a special decoration, which would have to be given to the soldier with a nicked finger alongside a quadriplegic. The clamour for new medals of all kinds is loud and persistent.
Service chiefs are currently debating — and mostly resisting — demands that personnel who control reaper drones that fly over Iraq and Syria from the safety of RAF Waddington in lincolnshire should receive an operational award of the kind traditionally reserved for pilots overflying enemy territory, and even that this should extend to maintenance crews who service the machines at RAF akrotiri in Cyprus.
The best token of appreciation we can offer to those wounded on the battlefield is not to issue them with a new medal, but instead to improve the woefully inadequate after-care many receive.
Prince Harry’s dedication to the cause of our veterans deserves admiration, but he seems wrong to argue for a British Purple Heart.
our service medals mean much to those who win them because relatively few are awarded.
Victims of misfortune, on the battlefield as elsewhere, will always deserve sympathy and respect. But we would cheapen the homage we pay to our bravest men and women by indiscriminately branding every casualty of war as a hero.