Named, unnamed & numbered......

[bigjarofwasps]

Ladies/Gents,

Am trying to get my head round how this concept works within the US military.

I recently read a book, whereby it told the story of two US infantry guys who got injured by an IED in Iraq in 2007. Having been hit, they were extracted back to an aid station, treated and then taken by helicopter from the aid station back to a hospital in Baghdad. Their Purple Hearts being pinned to their blankets. Is this normal practice? I assume that the wounded are awarded their Purple Hearts whilst in hospital? To that end are they awarded unnamed at first then later on reissued with named ones? Or are they issued unnamed and privately named later? I further assume that awards made to fatalities are issued named?

 

Which brings me onto gallantry awards, are these issued unnamed (off the shelf as it were), and privately named later, as I've hear stories are guys being issued medals in the field. I would assume these would be issued unnamed? Would they be reissued with a named one at the end of the tour for example? I assume that fatalities have theirs issued named to their next of kin?

 

Finally I assume that the off the shelf awards are the same as those that can be bought for a few dollars off Ebay? That being said, should someone be awarded a medal unnamed off the shelf could they not just then procure a numbered example and either wear that unnamed or indeed have that privately named to themselves?

One last thing, is there a way of telling officially named medals, are they all done by the same process, like British awards are?

 

[Gunner 1]

Your questions and the problems associated with those questions are the main reasons that, even though an American, I collect British medals rather than US medals. Records that allow the attribution of a US campaign medal to a particular person are available for only a small number of the numbered campaign medals and it is relatively easy to alter a number on these medals.  While many US collectors claim to be able to distinguish between officially-named medals and decorations and those privately named, I have never been able to convince myself that this is really the case.  It will be interesting to see what forum members who collect US medals have to say. 

[Ulsterman]

Well, yeah.

This is a HUGE topic. In short,today- and in Vietnam and maybe even WW2 many hospital units actually keep Purple Hearts in storage for immediate award/ photo opportunity. 

I have known Vietnam vets who lost/had ex-wives take/throw away purple hearts and then have them privately engraved and worn for decades ( notibly my brother and Uncle) .

As far as I know, the only US mint engraved ones these days are to KIAs.

The JOMSA has had a number of articles on this topic and many US collectors scour old unit paperwork for medal award numbers. For example, earlier this year I found an award list for a POW guard unit in Maine that listed the mint serial numbers of the Good Conduct medals awarded to the company in 1943. The medals list the number, then the recipients' name and rank.

Most General Orders did not do this and sometimes you can "tell" a unit by the number sequence. Most numbers were not engraved after 1942?