Another Red and Gold Reason to get up and go to work without complaint every day. If CPL Workman can take care of business this way, then I sure as hell ought to be able to get off my ass and go to my safe 9-5 job and do my part to pay his salary. He ain't getting paid enough.

Press on, SGT Workman. You inspire all us old farts to do what we have to do. And you and your shipmates will always have a place at our table.

Subsunk

Agreed...puts my IT job dealing with the French in perspective. It's easy to forget how good you have it sometimes....it's even easier to forget that I have it this easy because of the men and women like Sgt. Workman.

Thanks, Sgt. Workman and Semper Fi.

What the F*** does it take to with the MoH these days? Is it posthumous by definition?

This is why I've come to hate our news media.
You won't see this on the evening news, CNN, or even FOX. Frankly I think Sgt Workman ought to be assualting the studio's and newsrooms instead of killing terrorist. Dan Rather, Oprah, et al are a far bigger danger to this country than Bin Laden ever will be.

Outstanding!!

Again, a member of the U.S. military shows himself far superior than anyone in the MSM or Hollywood. God bless our military and thanks Sgt. Workman for your service!

Just to get it out of the way, I consider myself a liberal, though my understanding of what the label connotes may not square with many of yours. I agree with Cro. It sounds like a Medal of Honor to me. Certainly, Cpl. Workman's actions are inspiring and all Americans owe him a great debt of gratitude. It does not follow that his heroism should make anyone feel better about our country's misguided military effort in Iraq. It is the unfortunate truth that there have been true heroes in all armies and in all wars.

TDHCheri, Sgt Workmans heroism should make us all feel better about our actions in Iraq. With people like him over there maybe we can get the job done before the mission is poisoned. Sgt Workman believes in his mission and wants to accomplish it fully before he comes home. Perhaps you can hold back on your condemnation of his mission, understanding that your view of the world is your view and not the view of the majority of the nation. I speak as one who did have his mission poisoned, and watched millions of people die because of it.

Mike H., I am not actually sure how the majority of the nation views what's going on now in Iraq. Are you?

What does it take to win the Blue Max ? See
http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/smith/citation/index.html

for one example.

I don't know the exact particulars of Cpl. Workman's extraordinary heroism. It seems incredibly brave to me, and he certainly deserves our recognition and our gratitude.

But from what I know of SFC Smith, he (like Shugart and Gordon before him) went directly into harm's way in a manner that left no question what the outcome was going to be. I think they all knew they'd pay the ferryman's fee, but they considered the price worth it.

I'm not sure if that's a dividing line between a Cross and the Blue Max. Certainly, many a recipient of a Cross died (Jason Cunningham and John Chapman come to mind). Maybe the decorations board looks at it and says "Well, there was a teenie-weenie chance that s/he could have survived. Hack it at a Cross."

In any event, all of them inspire awe in me.

Well, I hesitated to include the citation in a post that also mentioned a partisan political viewpoint, so I hope all will forgive that indiscretion.

I mainly intended this as an inspiration to everyone, not just conservatives, and not just war supporters. I mean -- it's a hell of a story.

As far as the MOH vs. the Navy Cross goes, I don't think there is any written rule anywhere. Usually it is a matter of degree and interpretation by the chain of command.

Chester--It is a hell of a story. While I knew that some people would be offended by my position, I intended to make a point without being insulting.

TDHCheri, I think we understand each other.

Just a note on the whole MoH thing. I'm just passing this on from my husband who has been involved in a very direct way with some of the deliberations over what level of medal should be awarded to whom, and came up with a way in his mind to describe what the criterion is for someone to win the MoH. He describes it this way: To win a MoH, the individual must have taken an action putting himself in danger that, should he NOT have taken that action at all, in that same situation, no one would have faulted him in any way. That is a short desciption, but gives the idea of how far above and beyond the call of duty the awards boards are looking for an MoH. Unfortunately, as a consequence of taking on such an incredibly selfless sort of action in combat, most of those individuals are severely wounded or killed, which is why so many MoH's must be awarded post-humously.
By the way, the process of making these kinds of decisions (what award to give) at this level is taken very seriously and heavily debated and discussed. People will always have their own opinions, but we shouldn't act like those assigned to make these decisions don't understand the heavy responsibility they have to properly honor courageous service members.

Another aspect of the MoH is that the incident is one in which the awardee usually loses his/her life, but those that live through it do so only by luck.

Iraq Has Lower Violent Death Rate per 100,000 People than Washington, DC and Other Countries

Columbia ............ 61.7
New Orleans .......... 53.1
South Africa ......... 49.6
Washington, DC ....... 45.9
Baltimore ............ 37.7
Atlanta .............. 34.9
Jamiaca .............. 32.4
Venezuala ............ 31.6
Iraq ................. 25.71

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