Purple heart

The only ones interested in an award of Air Medals were the type 'O' 'perfumed princes'....ticket punchers

I'll buy a bottle of liquor for any FAC and Bird Dog pilot types I meet that has an Air Medal.
I have a soft spot for FAC/CAS pilots of the 'Vietnam Era'.
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I knew a chopper pilot, did 2 tours, lots of combat. He had 14 air medals. How the hell do you bronze/silver star that?

I was reading about it yesterday. When you got four silver OLCs, they just authorized a second ribbon alongside the first; it's why they went to numerals.

Talk about a participation award. The original criteria specified a certain number of sorties. It was intended to be a rare medal, and in WWII it was, but then they invented helicopters. And, suddenly, an eight-hour B17 run over Bremen in 1943 became the equivalent of a 20-minute round trip to a hot LZ in 1966. Both were a "sortie."

Eventually there came to be all sorts of complicated ways to log and calculate various different kinds of rotary flight, all so that they could keep track of how many Air Medals a guy was entitled to.
 
My Ex threw out my Good Conduct Medal....How low can you go ?

Can't think of much worse !!!

On a different note, I have two Purple Hearts, one was my father's (WW1) and one mine (Vietnam). They both appear the same but his is significantly heavier and has his name on the back. Mine has no name and I don't remember anyone telling me to take it to Post Clothing to have it engraved.
 
Talk about a participation award. The original criteria specified a certain number of sorties. It was intended to be a rare medal, and in WWII it was, but then they invented helicopters. And, suddenly, an eight-hour B17 run over Bremen in 1943 became the equivalent of a 20-minute round trip to a hot LZ in 1966. Both were a "sortie."

My recollection is that (Vietnam specific that is) 25 hours of logged "Combat" time equalled one Air Medal. Nothing to do with sorties.

In my company, the only time you logged "Combat Hours" were when you were actively picking up casualties in the field. We had other missions that did not involve "Combat" such as patient transfers from hospital to hospital, hospital to hospital ship, or from hospitals to AFB's for evacuation to Japan. Those flights were not logged "C" for Combat but "S" for support and not considered for hours toward an Air Medal.
 
The purple heat in question was made by a company called Lordship enterprise. The marking under the crimp broach dates it to around 1980’s. Unfortunately military medals get tossed aside by family all the time. Unfortunately it having the engraving removed will make it impossible to find the original awardee.
In a side note the company lordship was busted in 1996 for selling Medal Of Honor’s .
 
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