As Lord Byron's old maxim states: "Truth is stranger than fiction." Truth is also more fascinating than fiction and can be more entertaining than fiction.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the stories of the men who have earned America's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor.
Since the early days of the silent flicks, the war epic has been a staple of Hollywood. As George S. Patton once said (and was depicted by George C. Scott saying it onscreen): "Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance." Birth of a Nation, The General, Napoleon, What Price Glory? and Wings were only a few of the many groundbreaking films of that genre and era. As the genre evolved, it diversified into different subgenres: those which were purely fiction; those which were dramatizations based on actual events where the names of the real-life persons were fictionalized, such as The Horse Soldiers, Hamburger Hill, The Bridge at Remagen and 12 O'Clock High, and those where the story is presented as nonfiction, such as The Gallant Hours, A Bridge Too Far and Patton. The dividing line between the latter two subgenres is rather blurred, as is the dividing line between truth and fiction within the last subgenre. Not even the most scrutinized fact-based script can escape some fictionalization due to the limitations of the medium and to dramatic or poetic license. Too often, however, dramatic license is used as a rationalization for sensationalizing a story or distorting the truth for political propaganda or other cynical motives.
Like any other awards, military or civilian, the Medal of Honor can at times be devalued or politically influenced. It was the only medal awarded by the Army and Navy prior to the Spanish American War and was therefore much more readily given out; many of those earlier awards were later revoked because of its inflated value. Although it is awarded in the name of Congress and is therefore popularly referred to as the Congressional Medal of Honor, each individual award does not require an act of congress, although each is scrutinized by a review board at the Department of the Army, Navy or Air Force level (prior to 1947 the War Department or Navy Department). One of the Civil War medals later revoked was that issued to the only female surgeon in the Army's organization; it was later reinstated in the 1970s at the demand of a descendant. As none of the other noncombatant Army surgeons whose medals were revoked had theirs reinstated, the authors clearly see this as a reinstatement based on nothing but political correctness. Nevertheless, with few such exceptions, the recipients of the Medal of Honor have earned this premier US military award undisputed.
Read Full Article »