The New York Times Magazine has a fantastic article about the puzzle of the paucity of valor awards–those medals given for high acts of courage. Only six Medals of Honor have been awarded in Iraq or Afghanistan: a fraction of previous wars either absolute or percentage terms.
In the Pentagon’s defense, the article quotes one spokeswoman:
Addressing the drastic drop in Medal of Honor awards, she cited changes in the nature of warfare, noting that the enemy forces of Vietnam and earlier wars typically engaged in “close conflict” with U.S. forces, whereas today’s “non-uniformed insurgents” rely on “remotely detonated improvised explosive devices (I.E.D.’s), suicide bombers and rocket, mortar and sniper attacks” — all tactics, her statement implied, that create fewer opportunities for U.S. soldiers to demonstrate the traditional valor of close-quarters combat.
As a matter of personal opinion, I find the insinuation lacking, even somewhat offensive. Yes, the era of “whites of their eyes combat” has largely been supplanted by that of the IED. But fewer opportunities does not mean neither opportunity nor act of courage. It seems ridiculous to assert that only six soldiers since 2001 have gone “conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty,” and that lying on a grenade is not one such action.
Nonetheless, the article struck me for another incongruity. Despite all that has changed in warfare since the advent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the standards for judging true heroism seem only the greater. As Zoepf contends, “The standard for awarding the Medal of Honor has always been “incontestable proof of the performance of service,” but critics charge that in recent years the standard for “incontestable” must have been raised.” The attitude leads to such sorry spectacles as forensic pathological investigations as to whether the subject soldier was fully conscious when he shoved the grenade beneath his chest. The goal of technological innovation seem then to draw ever more fine distinctions between the voluntary and the accidental hero. This insistence on finding new forms of relative rankings is a powerful position.
Yet the military stands far and away alone in this fight. Perhaps the example most prominent in my mind (and you can draw on that what you will) is that of grade inflation at good schools. The best argument for the effect is one of absolute standards; technology and improved student bodies have enabled more A quality work now than ever before, and grading should reflect the fact that better work is being done now than every before. This argument may not be totally convincing, but it is compelling, and it has won the day at most schools.
I suppose the conservative in me should applaud the Pentagon for its refusal to hand out medals like baubles, to insist on ever-higher standards, and recognize intent as much as effect. Taken to an extreme, the grade inflation philosophy of only needing to surpass some absolute threshold to recieve a certain awards, be it an A or a medal, leads to situations in which all participants are above average. It is true that the military’s reluctance to dole out its awards has undoubtedly only increased their already heightened resonance when they do.
Nonetheless, the result seem a comprehensive solution to the wrong problem. Grades are, by definition, only useful in relative terms. It doesn’t matter if I say you have an A in math and I a B, or you a } and I an *; either way, you’re the one who should be hired to do the taxes. By contrast, heroism is not a zero-sum game. Your valor does not take away from mine, any more than my happiness detracts from yours. Only when the nation recognizes this valor in all its absolute forms, can we hope to achieve a polity in which valor is no longer necessary.
