Iraq: The War Without Honors

U.S. troops are fighting and dying with valor. So why have so few received the military's top awards?

Are there fewer heroes in the Iraq war than in previous wars? That's the message the Pentagon is sending, say critics, by not awarding today's soldiers nearly as many of the nation's highest military honors. Three and a half years of combat in Iraq, for example, have produced only two winners of the Medal of Honor, the country's highest military award for bravery in combat. There were, by contrast, 464 Medals of Honor handed out during America's involvement in World War II, which lasted the same amount of time. If the government had been as stingy then as it is now,...

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