the yellow finger

Ran across an interesting item from Reuters a couple days ago.

(T)he Pentagon on Wednesday created a new medal recognizing combat contributions of people like drone pilots and cyber warriors who are reshaping the battlefield, even from thousands of miles away.

Outgoing Defense Secretary and former CIA Director Leon Panetta - who spent much of the past four years bolstering those new capabilities - announced the decision to create the "Distinguished Warfare Medal" at a Pentagon news conference.

Further down the column, we find this:

Previously, drone pilots who remotely guide missiles against important targets in places like Pakistan or Yemen would not qualify for combat awards, because their acts technically lacked "valor" - a key requirement.

To say that killing people by remote cntrol from thousnds of miles away "technically lacks 'valor'" doesn't just understate the case; it mis-represents the nature of a cowardly act.

Murdering faraway people with flying death robots is the perfect expression of pseudo-military gallantry for this country right now. From the cowards working the keyboards, to their yellow commanders in the Pentagon, bureaucrats who bear little resemblance to actual soldiers, and right on up to our timid emperor, too scared to send actual American troops into harm's way to do his dirty work (people might object to having their lives wasted in a "war on terror"), we're getting serious discussion of this award which any genuine soldier would scorn.

It's not surprising such a bunch of losers want to give themselves a medal. Since soldiers wounded in actual combat receive a recognition of their service and sacrifice called the Purple Heart, I believe the new medal should be called "the yellow finger," for obvious reasons.