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The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States of America. There are three different medals currently issued for the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
The most recent action for which it was awarded occurred during the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, when MSG Gary Gordon and SFC Randy Shughart were posthumously awarded the medal. The highest corresponding civilian award given by the US is the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Most Medals of Honor have been awarded by the chain of command. However, Congress has occasionally bypassed this process; passing special bills that the President subsequently signs into law, mandating the award of a Medal of Honor to specific people. This Congressional Medal of Honor has been awarded to United States unknown soldiers entombed at Arlington National Cemetery from World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. It was also awarded to World War I unknown soldiers of Britain, France, Italy, and Romania. Most recently, Congress passed legislation mandating the award to Humbert R. Versace, Jon E. Swanson, and Ben L. Salmon as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002. This became Public Law 107-107, which was signed into law on December 28, 2001.
Although all Medals of Honor are often referred to by the name Congressional Medal of Honor, standard military practice is to refer to them as the Medal of Honor. All references in US Code to authorizing a medal of honor, replacing it or issuing duplicates refer to it as the "medal of honor" as do the individual military services. In US Code () only the ordinance establishing penalties for misuse calls it the "Congressional Medal of Honor". Congress authorized a "Congressional Medal of Honor Society," while the museum is called the "National Medal of Honor Memorial".
The US Army Medal of Honor was first authorized by joint resolution of Congress, July 12, 1862. The specific authorizing ordinance is found in US Code Title 10, Subtitle B, Part II, Ch. 357, Sec. 3741 Medal of Honor: Award which states:
"The President may award, and present in the name of Congress, a medal of honor of appropriate design, with ribbons and appurtenances, to a person who while a member of the Army, distinguished himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty." Later authorizations created similar medals for other branches of the service.
The medal was first awarded to six Union soldiers who hijacked the Confederate locomotive "The General." James J. Andrews, who led the raid, was a civilian. Andrews did not get the medal because it was originally given only to enlisted men. Army officers first received them in 1891 and Naval officers in 1915. Many Medals of Honor awarded in the 19th century were associated with saving the flag, not just for patriotic reasons, but because the flag was a primary means of battlefield communication.
The Army, combing through its records, has stripped many Civil War soldiers of the distinction. It seems that many soldiers were simply promised the Medal of Honor as an enticement to re-enlist once their tour of duty was finished, the war not yet being over.
The Navy, early in the 20th century, awarded many medals of honor for peacetime bravery. For instance, seven medals were awarded to sailors aboard the USS Iowa when a boiler exploded on January 25, 1904. Aboard the USS Chicago in 1901, John Henry Helms was awarded the medal for saving Ishi Tomizi, the ship's cook, from drowning. Even after World War I, the medal was awarded to Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett for exploration of the North Pole. Thomas John Ryan received it for saving a woman from the burning Grand Hotel in Yokohama, Japan following the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake.
In a short lived experiment, the Navy issued two separate versions of the Medal of Honor, one for peacetime bravery and the other for combat actions against the enemy force. The peacetime Medal of Honor was known as the "Tiffany Cross", after the company which manufactured the medal. The Tiffany Cross was first issued in 1919 and was highly rare and also unpopular. As a result, the United States Navy reverted to a single Medal of Honor, awarded only for heroism, in 1942.
During and after World War II, the medal has been awarded for extreme bravery above and beyond the call of duty, where a person consistently and persistently has put his comrades' safety foremost to the utter disregard of his own life while engaged in action against an enemy. It is often, although not always, awarded posthumously.
The Medal of Honor has evolved in appearance since its creation in 1862. The present day Army medal consists of a gold star surrounded by a wreath, topped by an eagle on a bar inscribed with the word "Valor." The medal is attached to a thick blue ribbon, which is then worn around the neck.
The United States Navy and United States Air Force have different designs; United States Marines receive the Navy's version of the Medal of Honor. The Air Force Medal of Honor is the only one of the service MOHs which remains unchanged in appearance since its conception in 1965.
The Medal of Honor is the only service decoration that cannot be privately bought, traded, or sold. All Medals of Honor are issued in the original only, by the Department of Defense, to a recipient. It is a federal crime to produce, wear, or distribute the Medal of Honor without proper authority.
In 2003, two persons, Edward and Gisela Fedora, were charged with violating Title 18, U.S.C. ยง704 - Unlawful Sale of a Medal of Honor. They sold medals awarded to US Navy Seaman Robert Blume (for action during the Spanish-American War) and to US Army First Sergeant George Washington Roosevelt (for action during the Civil War) to an FBI agent.
United States Marines recieve the Navy Medal of Honor while the United States Coast Guard is eligable to recieve either the Navy MOH or a conjectural design for a Coast Guard Medal of Honor. The Coast Guard Medal of Honor, which was distinguished from the Navy medal in 1963, has never been awarded and is considered a conjectural decoration by the Institute of Heraldry.
Only one member of the Coast Guard has ever received the Medal of Honor, Douglas Munro, who was awarded the medal for action at Guadalcanal. Since his Coast Guard unit was attached to the Navy at the time, Munro was awarded the Navy's version of the Medal of Honor. It is not certain what the procedure would be should a Coast Guard service member receive the Medal of Honor in modern times.
The Medal of Honor confers special privileges on its recipients both by tradition and by law. By tradition, all other soldiers, sailors, and airmen, even higher ranking officers, initiate the salute. By law, awardees have the following benefits:
A total of 3,459 medals have been awarded to 3,408 different people. Nineteen men received a second award: fourteen of these men received two separate Medals for two separate actions; five received both the Navy and the Army Medals of Honor for the same action. Since the beginning of World War II, 851 medals of honor have been awarded, 525 posthumously.
The following decorations bear similar names to the Medal of Honor, but are considered separate awards with different criteria for issuance.
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