It was his Call of Duty to be there for his Band of Brothers since they weren't Bad Company on the Battlefield.

still no equally conspicuous honors and praise for people who save lives through humanitarian work, even if at statistically equivalent risk.

Bomb Head Mohammed: still no equally conspicuous honors and praise for people who save lives through humanitarian work, even if at statistically equivalent risk.

Sour grapes much?

Bomb Head Mohammed: still no equally conspicuous honors and praise for people who save lives through humanitarian work, even if at statistically equivalent risk.

WTF is the Nobel Peace Prize?

Bomb Head Mohammed

Your comment is in juxtaposition to your username.

Oh look at me I'm a hero cause I sign up for the army after high school, do only as I'm told and go shoot people, give me a goddamn medal cause I'm a hero!

Bomb Head Mohammed: still no equally conspicuous honors and praise for people who save lives through humanitarian work, even if at statistically equivalent risk.

No way man I saw that last Rambo film. Those humanitarians were retarded. NO MEDAL FOR YOU!

About farking time for him to be recognized. How many in the "Global War on Terror" will have to wait 40 years? I'd be willing to bet that there are quite a few.

/farking dusty in here

pippi longstocking: Oh look at me I'm a hero cause I sign up for the army after high school, do only as I'm told and go shoot people, give me a goddamn medal cause I'm a hero!

Damn, the derp is strong in this thread.

Humanitarian efforts should be their own reward.

Now killin...thats for the glory!!

Lost_in_Korea: About farking time for him to be recognized. How many in the "Global War on Terror" will have to wait 40 years? I'd be willing to bet that there are quite a few.

/farking dusty in here

It generally helps to get the CMoH if it's awarded posthumously, even if the recipient didn't die in the actual engagement that they got the award for.

Typical government efficiency. It took 42 years to do what would have taken the private sector 42 days, tops, to accomplish.

Thanks, Zer0bama

Trawg: Typical government efficiency. It took 42 years to do what would have taken the private sector 42 days, tops, to accomplish.

Thanks, Zer0bama

Right, because Nixon didn't have anything to do with it

g4lt: Trawg: Typical government efficiency. It took 42 years to do what would have taken the private sector 42 days, tops, to accomplish.

Thanks, Zer0bama

Right, because Nixon didn't have anything to do with it

The dude got killed in 1968. Kinda not Nixon's fault, dumbass.

svenge: g4lt: Trawg: Typical government efficiency. It took 42 years to do what would have taken the private sector 42 days, tops, to accomplish.

Thanks, Zer0bama

Right, because Nixon didn't have anything to do with it

The dude got killed in 1968. Kinda not Nixon's fault, dumbass.

If you can blame the economy on Obama, I can blame Nixon for something that happened during his election year too. Sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander and all that crap

OMG!!!1 WHY IS FARTBONGO GIVING OUR SECRETS AWAY!!!!!
I wanted to get it over before one of the teatards came in.

Good for Obama

It's pretty laosy that it took them so long.

pippi longstocking: Oh look at me I'm a hero cause I sign up for the army after high school, do only as I'm told and go shoot people, give me a goddamn medal cause I'm a hero!

And don't think we don't appreciate your selfless acts of bravery pippi.

I could swear in one of my briefings we were reminded it is not our duty to expose ourselves to enemy fire. If my memory is correct the Airmen in question was operating above and beyond the call of duty.

Bigdogdaddy: OMG!!!1 WHY IS FARTBONGO GIVING OUR SECRETS AWAY!!!!!
I wanted to get it over before one of the teatards came in.

Good for Obama

Bigdogdaddy: OMG!!!1 WHY IS FARTBONGO GIVING OUR SECRETS AWAY!!!!!
I wanted to get it over before one of the teatards came in.

Good for Obama

Mr. Potato Head MR. Potato Head!

Meet one of the air america guys last week at a party in HCMC ( Saigon ) He not happy about how things worked out for him I think, his dream is to go back to Laos and have a look at the 70+ planes he left

pippi longstocking: Oh look at me I'm a hero cause I sign up for the army after high school, do only as I'm told and go shoot people, give me a goddamn medal cause I'm a hero!

Let me be the first to salute pippi for selflessly trolling the fark threads and defending our 1st amendment rights. You deserve the fark medal of honor!

pippi longstocking: Oh look at me I'm a hero cause I sign up for the army after high school, do only as I'm told and go shoot people, give me a goddamn medal cause I'm a hero!

You get picked on alot in high school don't you? It's OK, you'll quit getting teased about having a tiny penis by everyone in gym class someday. And only the one girl you bang for 20 seconds every other year will know you have a tiny penis.

/fark you
//you have a tiny penis
/// saw him in gym class
////your mom

pippi longstocking: Oh look at me I'm a hero cause I sign up for the army after high school, do only as I'm told and go shoot people, give me a goddamn medal cause I'm a hero!

No, he's a hero because: "Etchberger deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire "in order to place his three surviving wounded comrades in the rescue slings permitting them to be airlifted to safety."

/you should have just quoted Ali, at least then you wouldn't have looked like an idiot

Phil Herup: Here is a cool story bro type situation:


When I was 19, I did a guy in Laos from a thousand yards out. It was a rifle shot in high wind. Maybe eight or even ten guys in the world could have made that shot. It's the only thing I was ever good at.

You did a guy??? Homo. Although doing him from a thousand yards is impressive.

/M Riggs
//Murtaugh approves
///too old for this shiat

Phil Herup: Here is a cool story bro type situation:


When I was 19, I did a guy in Laos from a thousand yards out. It was a rifle shot in high wind. Maybe eight or even ten guys in the world could have made that shot. It's the only thing I was ever good at.

Poor word choice, Phil. I think you just set yourself up...again.

I am glad Etchberger received a medal for his valor in combat. Our country needs valiant soldiers, so we should reward those who valiantly die.

But the timing of this award is circumspect, given our government's recent withdrawal of combat operations in Iraq. I am skeptical of any philanthropy or favor given by government, thus I cannot believe this reward to be without political motive.

I understand the government's need to hide Etchberger's heroism, but I also understand the government's need to have heroes in troubled times. We have seen their ability to create heroes when Pat Tilman died, or when Lynch was captured. It is with these things in mind that I ask the incredulous of you who read my post, why was this award allowed to be bestowed 42 years after the event, not 41 years, 34 years, or even 45 years after it?

It is because the government's end to combat operations in Iraq has officially ended a war that never officially began. The war has long been ignored by the public, but the government now wants those who haven't forgotten about the war to think it finished. They do not want the people who have faced a 9-year-war to see it in its fifteenth year.

So they direct the public's attention to the troops returning home, to remembering and esteeming the troops who will never return, past or present. They want the public to celebrate a military victory, as though the joy a wife feels watching her husband walk into their home after he has spent a year in a battlefield is a communal feeling that can be passed from person to person, infecting their spirits. The government wants the public to celebrate the men and women who served a great military that serves a great nation. What attention, then, is left to give to the 50,000 troops still in Iraq?

Etchberger's heroism will be rewarded far too late for the award to not be devised. I do not like my government unearthing dead heroes to pin medals to their bones.

Congratulations pippi longstocking you got a +5.5

/butt cakes

I've often thought this is one of the reasons there are so many MIA. Lots of guys went places where the U.S. wasn't supposed to go, doing things the U.S. wasn't supposed to do. If they didn't come back they were MIA.

As the son of a man who fought in Laos and Cambodia, I come pretty close to tearing up when I see things like this. Those guys were the baby boom's answer to the men who jumped behind the lines in France.

Whether or not you agree with the politics of the war in Vietnam (f*ck conflict, that was war) you can't deny that those guys had balls.

/Mess with the best, die like the rest.

Phil Herup: Here is a cool story bro type situation:


When I was 19, I did a guy in Laos from a thousand yards out. It was a rifle shot in high wind. Maybe eight or even ten guys in the world could have made that shot. It's the only thing I was ever good at.


Lethal Weapon reference. Knew I recognised it, but had to google it to figure out from where.

g4lt: Sour grapes much?

So, genius, exactly what do you think I have 'sour grapes' about? No, please. I'd really like to hear your rationale on this one. I'll paste it right next to the "Al Gore is a douche therefore I should buy an SUV" crowd's rhetoric in my museum of obvious rationalization. I really and truly want to know why you think that somehow *I* am jealous because people who I believe are equivalent if not greater heroes don't get the public recogintion that military people do in the USA. Please, tell us. Go on. We're waiting.

Bomb Head Mohammed: g4lt: Sour grapes much?

You're both douchebags. There. Settled.

unalivezombie: Phil Herup: Here is a cool story bro type situation:


When I was 19, I did a guy in Laos from a thousand yards out. It was a rifle shot in high wind. Maybe eight or even ten guys in the world could have made that shot. It's the only thing I was ever good at.


Lethal Weapon reference. Knew I recognised it, but had to google it to figure out from where.

You sound stupid. What didn't give it away? my riggs or murtaugh reference? Or to old for this shiat?

Dumbass

I went to Laos and all I got was this lousey video game

I just read about a student protest from around 1970 at the local university where, on the 4th of July, they rung a bell once for each American dead in Vietnam, at the time US deaths were at 44,000. So they rang this bell, once a second, for over 12 hours. Another 14,000 died before the end of the war.

/I'm getting a kick out of these replies got something in my eye

Bomb Head Mohammed: still no equally conspicuous honors and praise for people who save lives through humanitarian work, even if at statistically equivalent risk.

How about the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
Link (new window)

Though to be honest, the list of humanitarian recipients is shorter than it should be.

TheShavingofOccam123: I'm pretty sure we will never know what went on in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. Who died there and who was left behind.

I know someone who was in Laos and Thailand in the early to mid 60's. He some of the stuff told me includes daily bombing runs into southern China, leaving dozens of nuclear weapons out in the open so that they could photographed by survelence, going awol and having the Air Force search for him, and threatening to kill a US non-morse intercept operator, amoung other things.

The "Vietnam thing" was a police action according to history. There was never a formal declaration of war. Now, this thing in Laos...there is no record at all; it's like it never happened!

Shaddup: unalivezombie: Phil Herup: Here is a cool story bro type situation:


When I was 19, I did a guy in Laos from a thousand yards out. It was a rifle shot in high wind. Maybe eight or even ten guys in the world could have made that shot. It's the only thing I was ever good at.


Lethal Weapon reference. Knew I recognised it, but had to google it to figure out from where.

You sound stupid. What didn't give it away? my riggs or murtaugh reference? Or to old for this shiat?

Dumbass


And you sound like an ass.

How about, didn't see your post?

Awesome that he's getting his award. Truly, the Vietnam effort was a fight between good and evil. Sadly, the hard left in the States was part of the evil, of course.

We've gotten much smarter at recognizing what they are, but they almost doomed 27 mill iraqis, too.

Bomb Head Mohammed: g4lt: Sour grapes much?

So, genius, exactly what do you think I have 'sour grapes' about? No, please. I'd really like to hear your rationale on this one. I'll paste it right next to the "Al Gore is a douche therefore I should buy an SUV" crowd's rhetoric in my museum of obvious rationalization. I really and truly want to know why you think that somehow *I* am jealous because people who I believe are equivalent if not greater heroes don't get the public recogintion that military people do in the USA. Please, tell us. Go on. We're waiting.

What precisely you have sour grapes about is whinging about a guy getting a medal that you will never have the balls to get yourself, even if it was offered for other than combat. The CMoH is the Nation's highest honor, an is reserved for people that do more than troll message boards and live in mommy's basement. If you want to disparage a CMoH winner, I'd suggest you get off your lazy butt and do something noteworthy first, like loading multiple wounded onto a plane while under fire. Come on, ITG, put your honor where you mouth is, _medicins sans froniteres_ could use some PAs in some shiathole like Somalia where you're sure to get enough action that you should get a CMoH. When that happens you can open your piehole. Until then, STFU and DIAF.

The editor who permitted that article through needs a spanking. It has more technical errors than you can shake a stick at, and several grammatical errors as well.

All of you who have posted negative replies to this should be ashamed. I challenge any one of you to come forward and tell me what unit you served with.

Stay in your safe safe home. Your safe safe school. Your safe safe job.

Hate us.

You really mean nothing to us.