Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta received the Medal of Honor on Tuesday / White House photo
I know there are some soldiers fighting for us today who are glad Bryan Fischer isn’t serving alongside them. The alleged pro-family blogger complained the other day that the Medal of Honor is becoming “feminized” because it’s being awarded to soldiers who have saved comrades instead of killing the enemy (be sure to check out the comments appended to his calumny, um, column):
When we think of heroism in battle, we used the think of our boys storming the beaches of Normandy under withering fire, climbing the cliffs of Pointe do Hoc while enemy soldiers fired straight down on them, and tossing grenades into pill boxes to take out gun emplacements. That kind of heroism has apparently become passe when it comes to awarding the Medal of Honor. We now award it only for preventing casualties, not for inflicting them.
Fighting an elusive, guerrilla-like force doesn’t offer up many beaches to storm (especially in land-locked Afghanistan) or pill boxes to attack. You honor your heroes where you find them, Mr. Fischer. Intrepidity – one of those great words in Medal of Honor citations – means “resolutely courageous; fearless” and it plays both offense and defense. Always has, always will. And the grunts to the left and right of those so decorated would have it no other way.