Medal of Honor

I was in Indianapolis a few years back and ended up in the War Memorial. It's an absolutely beautiful building, both inside and out. The cornerstone was laid by General Pershing in 1927. There is a museum of military history in the basement. I learned who the Tyndall Armory, where the Golden Gloves are held every year, was named after. I also strolled around the rest of the building and was very impressed by the architecture and just the fact that such a building was ever built.

Off to one side there was a display about people claiming to be Medal of Honor recipients who weren't. The exhibit included some really nice black and white photos of some of the people who actually were recipients and a little caption of what they thought about the whole deal. The exhibit was basically about one man who is trying to stop this by exposing the frauds. It really pissed me off that someone would stoop so low as to try and pad their resume by claiming to have been awarded this medal falsely. The school I used to work at was named after a young man who was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously. He jumped on a grenade to save his buddies and paid the ultimate price.

In Sunday's Chicago Tribune, the lead story was about people who have claimed military medals in Who's Who and other places and they found 58% of the medals were unverified. It's really a good article and says something about the society we're living in. If you have a few minutes, I would strongly urge you to read it here. It's hard for me to imagine anything that's much lower than that. What is there to gain? Have they no shame? I just don't get it.