I need an education. I say that medals are awarded. Others say they are presented (USMC & USN), and a few say they are earned. Only press pukes say that a medal is "won." Is there a difference between the USN/USMC certificate and the US Army paper? I think that there is. Any help out there?
Airbornelawyer
08-12-2005, 17:49
I need an education. I say that medals are awarded. Others say they are presented (USMC & USN), and a few say they are earned. Only press pukes say that a medal is "won." Is there a difference between the USN/USMC certificate and the US Army paper? I think that there is. Any help out there?
No one disputes that medals are "awarded", even the Navy. The Navy and Marine Corps use the term "takes pride in presenting " in their citations, rather than "awards," but that is probably just a stylistic choice. These award formats are found in Appendix 2C of SECNAV Instruction 1650.1G, Navy and Marine Corps Awards Manual (http://neds.daps.dla.mil/Directives/1650/1650.htm), which of course is an awards manual.
The service "awards" or "presents" the decoration; the recipient "receives" it or "is awarded" it or "is presented it". But this focuses on the recognition of the act for which the award is given, not the performance of the act itself. Here, "earned" is perhaps the better term, though as a little birdie may have mentioned elsewhere, even some medals "awarded" probably weren't "earned".
AR 600-8-22 uses "earned" in several places, but mostly doesn't refer to the act and otherwise says "awarded."
Saying someone "won" an award is awkward, but is how it is often popularly termed. And trying to be creative, your press pukes these days pull out the thesaurus. I've seen several reports on OIF awards where the PAO wrote, "XXX nets Navy Cross", which sounds even more cliched to me than "won".
A check of popular usage:
Googling "Medal of Honor recipient" gives you 85,500 hits. "Medal of Honor winner" nets 23,700. The Congressional Medal of Honor Society uses recipient, but even there you see an occasional "won".
Other Googles:
"was awarded the Medal of Honor" = 19,300 hits
"received the Medal of Honor" = 17,200 hits
"earned the Medal of Honor" = 14,800 hits
"won the Medal of Honor" = 7,500 hits
"was awarded the Navy Cross" = 6,150 hits
"received the Navy Cross" = 4,070 hits
"won the Navy Cross" = 1,790 hits
"was presented with the Navy Cross" = 907 hits
"earned the Navy Cross" = 538 hits
BTW, if you are hearing a Disney song in the back of your mind, check your PMs.
aricbcool
08-12-2005, 17:50
My Dad's DD214 (USN:1966-70) says "awarded or authorized" on line 24.
I'm not sure if the DD214 is different between services or is generalized to fit all of the armed services though.
Regards,
Aric