Udall Honors Hero

It should be hard to be critical of a politician who publicly honors a military hero, and yet Mark Udall makes it easy.

He recently presented the Navy and Marine Corps Medal to the family of a marine who died saving lives. For those whose military service is Army, it is the equivalent of the Soldier's Medal, a very high honor reserved for those who save lives at the risk of their own, not necessarily in combat.

It is not an easy medal to win, and in 20 years service, we only knew of one Soldier's Medal awardee. Marine Damon Towne's actions clearly met the requirements, and Mark Udall is to be commended for helping his parents secure it for him. If Towne has a military headstone Udall might want to see if he can secure a replacement so that it can reflect the award.

The one thing that troubles us is that Mark Udall seems to go out of his way to avoid recognizing war heroes from the current era. His anti-war, MoveOn.org constituency can't be offended by this medal, but would have been had Udall attended the Lt Michael Murphy Medal of Honor ceremony or even mentioned it in a press release.

If Udall wants to present awards, let him begin to honor combat awards. His participation as a presenter in this ceremony for this award appears cynical.

As an aside, one would think that the two TV stations that covered this presentation might have included Damon Towne's rank, of which he had a right to be proud.

Honoring Soldiers, but not Lt Michael Murphy

As a member of Congress who wants to be a US Senator, Mark Udall could have chosen to attend the Medal of Honor ceremony for Lt Michael Murphy. He did not. The ceremony took place only a few hundred yards from his office.

One of the three team mates on that mission who Lt Murphy died trying to save was Danny Dietz of Colorado.

If Udall couldn't take the time to attend the ceremony, one would think that he could at least have made note of it on one of his two web sites. It was too much trouble, or more likely doing so ran too much risk of losing MoveOn.org campaign donations.

Mark Udall is great at photo ops with live soldiers, but like so many on the left, he can't seem to pay honor in any way to a real hero. Once again, the left's claim to love the soldiers is demonstrated to be nothing more than an empty, meaningless phrase.

"We Love the Soldiers"

Bill Kristol reported on Fox today that Lt Michael Murphy was from Long Island. He also observed that fewer Medals of Honor are awarded than Nobel Peace Prizes but the New York Times, Murphy's local paper, can't be troubled to report on his award. It is full of page after page of reporting on Al Gore.

The "we love the soldiers" line that liberals like Mark Udall are taking is far better than the reception my brother got when he returned from Viet Nam. He flew into San Francisco and couldn't get out of his uniform quickly enough for fear of being spit on.

That bit of personal history aside, the question we have for liberals is a simple one. If you love soldiers, why is it so important for you to attempt to conceal from the public their honorable service to their country?