I posted this in the Army Infantry forums and want to post it with my fellow Coast Guard service members so we can get the word out.

Two bills were introduced into Congress to authorize a Cold War Service Medal to eligible veterans who served during that period (1946-1991). The first is Senate bill (S. 2743). Here is a short press release:

"WASHINGTON D.C. – U.S. Senators Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), Jim Webb (D-Va.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) today introduced the Cold War Service Medals Act of 2009, bipartisan legislation to authorize the secretaries of the military departments to award Cold War Service Medals to American veterans. To date, no medal exists to honor the men and women who served and defended the United States during the Cold War.

The second companion bill is in the House of Representatives. It is bill (H.R. 4051) which was introduced by Rep. Steve Israel (NY-2). It also calls for the authorization of a Cold War Service Medal to eligible service members.

For over a decade Cold War Vets have been fighting for the creation and authorization of a Cold War Service Medal to honor their service. Over the years legislation has been introduced in Congress only for it to be later stripped out in conference committee.

November 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. We are hoping that this legislation will finally become reality so that all Cold War Vets can receive the proper recognition they deserve.

Please contact your Senators and ask them to co-sponsor senate bill (S.2743) Also contact your congressman and ask them to co-sponsor house bill (H.R. 4051). We need as many co-sponsors as possible to make this a reality!

Thanks in advance for all of your help!

John

I've already E-mailed my Congressmen & Senators to support this and encourage everyone else affected to contact theirs, also.

I'm going to keep this highlighted for a while...

A big THANKS Jerry!

I like the idea. It will be a "Thanks for Showing Up" that will also remind us, and others, that we are OLD.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ACWest,

Think about the fact that it has been 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell...

Hey jerry, wasn't that about the time you submitted your first retirement letter?

Hmmm. I noted a few word changes with curiousity. The words "veterans" and the phrase "eligible service members" are used in several different instances. One would lead me to believe it was a commemorative medal, the other a Military Service Medal, meaning more salad for our uniform. With multiple NDMs given out during that time frame, I am not certain it deserves another Military Service Medal.

Anyone have an idea which way 'they' are trying to go?

Two ideas were submitted recently: the CWSM and the European Defense Service Medal (EDSM) were proposed to SecDef on a DOD poll, and the questions came out #1 & #2.

DoD SecDef poll

This was shot down the last two times because the state department felt it would be considered an outright insult to Russia and China.

My point being what has changed in the Capital that would convince them to change their minds?

They feel they need Russia on the Iran thing and China on the North Korea thing. So we wouldn’t want them to get mad at us would we?

A fond greeting to the Coast Guard folks here; my Dad served in the Coast Guard back in the 50's.

In any event, I'm USMC_Kinda_Guy and I've written several extended posts on the Cold War Service Medal thread over in the General Discussions section of this Forum. The purpose of these posts is to clear up some of the confusion about the proposed medal. Some of your questions might be answered just by reading through that rather lengthy thread. If not, I can probably answer them here, or at least answer them to the best of my knowledge or my reasoning. I've noted a couple of great questions on your thread, and will get to them ASAP.

In the interim, I'm using an already fully-loaded cut-n-paste about using a NDSM instead of a CWSM. (Short answer - you can't). It's a question that has come up a in a few separate threads, so I'll post here just in case you don't make it over to the main thread. Rather not waste a perfectly good cut-n-paste in any case! In any event, my intent certainly is not to spam anyone. My apologies in advance if I've violated any Forum rules.

Here's the cut-n-paste:

quote:
Originally posted by Dave_M:
They could just add those of us who served during the cold war to the National Defense Service Medal eligibility. That way those who served during overlap periods would already have the medal.


Dave_M,

Excellent suggestion, and one that has been made by a great many people. However, a proposal to award a NDSM to address the gaps in coverage during the Cold War peiod (1946-1991) has three major problems:

1) It would directly contravene the initial directive's/subsequent legislation's clear intent of what was envisioned as constituting a period of "national emergency." The NDSM has only been awarded for the time periods assigned to the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, and GWOT, so it seems quite evident that the concept of "national emergency" is to be equated (more or less) with what is commonly termed a "shooting war." Fair enough, and I don't think most people have a particular problem with this equation. One's only recourse would be to argue that the entire Cold War period constituted a single, overarching "shooting war," like an Orwellian concept of eternal war/conflict. Even if one could pull off the argument, there is still...

2) DoD's anticipated objections that expanding the NDSM would "cheapen" the award to those who already received it, as well as "cheapening" the other awards within the wider awards system. Certainly in the case of the NDSM, and given the context that was provided in the preceding paragraph, I would have to agree with DoD. This is working on the assumption that, even if you were not actively engaged in a shooting war, there certainly existed the possibility that you could sent to one if indeed you served during the four authorized periods for the NDSM. (As an aside, DoD's claims regarding the impact of an award on the wider awards system have always failed to convince anyone, especially since it happily went along with the plethora of medals created during the GWOT). In any event, in my humble opinion, there is simply no way you're going to get an expanded-period coverage past DoD, and even if you could...

3) It would still fail to recognize the Cold War as a unique conflict; a conflict that was waged for almost a half-century, with the approval of numerous U.S. Congresses and 9 American Presidents, which marshalled an array of military, intelligence, diplomatic and economic resources of the Western democracies in a number of treaty organizations, and which culminated in the collapse of one of the most powerful empires the world has ever seen, with the result that tens of millions of people were freed from tyranny, and the world's geo-political framework was changed as fundamentally as it had been at the end of WWII. Instead of subsuming the Cold War into an expanded, and woefully generic NDSM, it would be better to recognize the manifold accomplishments entailed in winning the Cold War with an actual Cold War Service Medal (as some of our NATO and SEATO allies are considering).

USMC_Kinda_Guy

So we are talking about an actual military decoration. One that which will have 99.999% of it's recipients no longer serving in the miltary? By the time it's authorized, struck and ready for presentation in reasonable quantity, any of that .001% of recipients still on AD will be retirement eligible. Heck, there a good chance there will even be people who are reitired military members who are not eligible becuase they joined too late by that time......

right?

quote:

Originally posted by Mightyz90_93:
So we are talking about an actual military decoration. One that which will have 99.999% of it's recipients no longer serving in the miltary? By the time it's authorized, struck and ready for presentation in reasonable quantity, any of that .001% of recipients still on AD will be retirement eligible. Heck, there a good chance there will even be people who are reitired military members who are not eligible becuase they joined too late by that time......

right?

Yes.

The strategy this time is to call it the Cold War Service Medal and not the Cold War Victory Medal. We don’t want to upset the Russians you know.

From the Bill:

Sec. 1136. Cold War Service Medal

(a) Medal Authorized- The Secretary concerned may issue a service medal, to be known as the ‘Cold War Service Medal’, to persons eligible to receive the medal under subsection (c).

(b) Design- The Cold War Service Medal shall be of an appropriate design approved by the Secretary of Defense, with ribbons, lapel pins, and other appurtenances.

(c) Eligible Persons- A person eligible to be issued the Cold War Service Medal is any person--

(1) who--

(A) served on active duty in the Armed Forces for not less than 24 consecutive months during the Cold War;

(B) was deployed as a member of the Armed Forces outside the continental United States for a period of at least 30 days during the Cold War; or

(C) performed such other service in the Armed Forces during the Cold War as the Secretary of Defense may prescribe for purposes of this section; and

(2) who, if discharged or released from the Armed Forces, was so discharged or released under honorable conditions after service in the armed forces characterized as honorable.

(d) One Medal Authorized- Not more than one Cold War Service Medal may be issued to any person.

Brett

quote:

(1) who--

(A) served on active duty in the Armed Forces for not less than 24 consecutive months during the Cold War;

(B) was deployed as a member of the Armed Forces outside the continental United States for a period of at least 30 days during the Cold War; or

(C) performed such other service in the Armed Forces during the Cold War as the Secretary of Defense may prescribe for purposes of this section; and

This is funny. Para (A) is fairly restrictive (as in it excludes a HUGE chunk of reservists.) Para (B) opens it up, but likely still excludes a bunch of those previously excluded reserbists and then (C) says "whoever else the SECDEF wants it to go to."

quote:

Originally posted by Mightyz90_93:
Hmmm. I noted a few word changes with curiousity. The words "veterans" and the phrase "eligible service members" are used in several different instances. One would lead me to believe it was a commemorative medal, the other a Military Service Medal, meaning more salad for our uniform. With multiple NDMs given out during that time frame, I am not certain it deserves another Military Service Medal.

Anyone have an idea which way 'they' are trying to go?

MC:

I was AD Army in West Germany from '78 to '81. No conflict, so no NDSM for my time there.

When I came back home, I was bombarded with applications to the American Legion. I filled the first one out but never submitted it because I did not have a NDSM, nor did I serve during any of the eligibility time periods on the application. I started getting angry when I kept receiving them in the mail.

I did not join then and am not a member now.

I am, however, a Life Member of the VFW (Gulf war & Haiti). That I am proud of.

The CWSM might "fill in the cracks" for those of us who served between conflicts between 1945 and 1991.

quote:

The CWSM might "fill in the cracks" for those of us who served between conflicts between 1945 and 1991.

..sorry, I got lost on that. What cracks? AL membership cracks?

I'm not too worried about the cracks, this is not little league, and everyone does not need a trophy just for showing up. That does not make anyone’s service less important. It's just the way it is.

But I will tell you why I support this.

My Father in- law was in the Army in the early 50s. He was sent to Germany at a time when we expected the Russians to come across at any time like the Chinese did in Korea. He stood the watch in the summer and winter, rain or shine with both Germans and Russians taking pot shots at him for more than 2 years, not knowing if the Russians were going to invade today or tomorrow or just nuke him and get it over with.

I’m pretty sure he and those like him deserve some recognition. I'd trade my rack for that little medal to give to him in a heartbeat.

quote:

Originally posted by bfayer:
This was shot down the last two times because the state department felt it would be considered an outright insult to Russia and China.

My point being what has changed in the Capital that would convince them to change their minds?

They feel they need Russia on the Iran thing and China on the North Korea thing. So we wouldn’t want them to get mad at us would we?

Bfayer,

I think I can provide some background to these items. Please keep in mind that I am not part of the leadership of the American Cold War Veterans (ACWV), which had some input and advice to Senator Snowe's office, nor am I some congressional staffer or anyone of any particular import, nor am I privy to any insider information whatsoever. I'm just a guy that has been following this issue rather closely. Having said this, here's my take on the situation.

1) Yes, you are correct in that the Cold War Service Medal (CWSM) was deemed to carry less political overtones (and thus, baggage) than would a Cold War Victory Medal (CWVM). No need to upset Russia and China unless absolutely necessary (though our restraint has done us little good, given that Russia and China do whatever the hell they nwant to do anyway. On the positive side, for all practical purposes, either medal is indeed a victory medal. All the Cold War medal proposals that I've seen have been from NATO member states and NOT Russia and ex-members of the Warsaw Pact. You can draw you own conclusions (heh).

2) Several things have changed since the previous stand-alone Cold War bills were introduced in previous sessions of Congress. The advantages of the 111th Congress' S.2743 and H.R.4051 Cold War Service Medal bills?

a) Better liaison between the the staff of the Senate bill's primary sponsor (Olympia Snowe) and the staff over at Defense (the House bill is the companion bill, and is based on the Senate's). The bill addressed some of Defense Dept's objections to earlier bills (mostly costs and eligibility requirements). As such, the bill established a 2-year service requirement for the medal which, quite frankly, is far more stringent that any of the GWOT-related medals (or for the KDSM or the Yugoslavia-related medals, for that matter). Because of DoD demands, the bill effectively had to throw all non-prior reservists "under the bus" (though this also resulted in substantial savings to possible medal costs, in addition to having high service standards). I believe that it also helps explain why this is a CWSM, and not a CWVM.

b) The Senate bill is off to a strong, bipartisan start. Even more importantly, the cosponsors include Jim Webb (D-VA, and former SECNAV under President Reagan). He sits on the Committee on Armed Services and is the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Personnel (which includes the AWARDS stuff), so the bill is less likely to get bottled up in committee. He's obviously a Cold War veteran himself, so it's all good. These are excellent developments in the Senate, given that it has always been the Senate that has squelched previous efforts; the House has always been quite supportive.

c) At least insofar as I'm aware, DoD hasn't voiced any strident objections to medal costs, perhaps due to it's wildly exaggerated estimates as to costs for previous medals (which it claimed would be $250 million) were utterly disproven by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which scored the medal costs at around $30 million. It can be argued that actual costs (based on the experience of the KDSM) will actually be far lower than the CBO figure. (A fuller discussion of these budget items are found in the Cold War Medal thread over in the General Discussion section of the Forum).

d) Unlike earlier sessions of Congress, the term of the 111th Congress (2009-2010) will overlap a great deal with a broad series of 20th Anniversary commemorative events and ceremonies, beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall [HUGE coverage by FOX and other networks) and concluding with the dissolution of the USSR. All of this [obviously favorable] press coverage of the sucsessful conclusion of the Cold War will undoubtedly assist in the medal effort by keeping it on the radar screen of members of Congress. A recent DoD poll showed that the question of a Cold War Medal - a poll that recorded 40,000 votes in 16 days - is one that likely has widespread public support. (There's more on this in the other thread as well).

e) ADDED IN EDIT: Different SECDEF. Donald Rumsfield (Mr. MBA Business Model himself) was obviously hostile to the idea of a Cold War Medal, since he ignored the expressed wishes of the Congress in 2001 to create a Cold War Medal. In contrast, we can expect that the present SECDEF - Dr. Gates - will have a far greater appreciation for the trials and tribulations of the Cold War period. Much of Sec. Gates' career in the CIA was during the Cold War period. In addition, his doctorate is in Russian studies (I can't recall the exact particulars at the moment). Given his CIA and academic experience, I fully expect a fairer consideration of the issue this time around.

f) ADDED IN 2nd EDIT: Different PRESIDENT (Can't believe I forgot this one initially). I don't believe (or don't recall) that former President Bush ever expressed a public opinion about a Cold War Medal. In contrast, during the presidential campaign on October 18, 2006 then Senator Barack Obama was quoted as saying: “I agree that the Cold War Victory Medal would be an appropriate honor.” In addition, on January 8, 2008 “Obama for America” website stated: “As president he would sign legislation creating a Cold War Medal.” Fully realizing that political promises are the equivalent of bedroom "pillow talk," I would still say that a CWSM has brighter prospects with the new administration. Time will tell, of course.


In any event, there's my analysis of the situation. Took longer than I thought, so I'll probably post this over on the General Discussion section's Cold War Medal thread as well.

USMC_Kinda_Guy

This message has been edited. Last edited by: USMC_Kinda_Guy,

quote:

Originally posted by Mightyz90_93:

quote:

The CWSM might "fill in the cracks" for those of us who served between conflicts between 1945 and 1991.

..sorry, I got lost on that. What cracks? AL membership cracks?

No. Army cracks.

I served three years in West Germany and thought what I did was a really good job.

I was advanced to SP/4 before more tenured peers (we had to go before a Promotions Board for that, something rare back then to just make E4) and received the equivelant of three "C" Schools in about a year and a half (one was the norm in my unit, if you got that; three was unheard of). Along with the half-dozen letters of appreciation and commendation I received, I was put in for an Army Commendation Medal which, unfortunately, I never received (nor a lessor Achievement Medal) because I was told later on, "the paperwork must have slipped between the cracks" (i.e. it got lost somewhere). No E-mail trail back then, just an old paper trail that had a habit of going wayward.

When I was discharged, my Army CGM was typed on my DD-214 and never presented to me, even though I had a direct enlistment into the USAR and a unit all picked out, even before leaving West Germany.

I read a book while i was there called "The Third World War" which defined our roles in West Germany as acting as "speed bumps" for the Soviet Forces in Czechoslovakia who were poised to make a mad dash for the Rhein River if the balloon ever went up. On top of that, our MP Bn was on alert twice in '79 to go to Iran when the Shah left and when the US Embassy was over run.

Playing out in the field during unit ARTEPs and annual REFORGER exercises kept the whole Soviet threat thing in the front of your mind.

I would have never received a NDSM for any of my AD or Reserve time in the Army. But the CWSM, under any of the standards given, I qualify for.

Do you have any preference of how you want to be updated on the Cold War Service Medal discussions? Most of the stuff is over on the CWSM thread in the General Discussion section of the Forum. You could pop over there or I can cut-n-paste some of the more pithy comments over here, Your call.

Of course, if you have a specific question, I'll address it here obviously.

USMC_Kinda_Guy

Don't they currently send out Cold War certificates to those that desire one?

Wray...