"A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon." Attributed to Napoleon
Army announces new Combat Action Badge (CAB) Design.
Even if the Bush administration is denying that the situation in Iraq isn't going all that well, the evidence is still leaking out of the DOD. The Army Chief of Staff has approved a new device, which indicates that the soldier wearing it was in combat. New Army Badge
The significance of this below the fold.
In the recent tributes to Hackworth it was noted that he held his CIB (Combat Infantryman Badge) as the most meaningful of his decorations. By regulation it could only be awarded to soldiers serving in an infantry branch job, and in an identified combat zone. It loudly declares "I've been there and done that."
Even the other Combat Arms Branches (Armor or Field Artillery) were denied a similar device. Until now a tanker in the same battle with a grunt would not earn anything comparable to the CIB, a bone of contention for some non-infantry combat veterans. The justification, I guess, was that the guys stuck with the deadliest duty deserved special recognition.
Apparently that has changed. Now, in Iraq, the front lines are anything outside of the Green Zone. Traveling around safely requires, at a minimum, a cel phone jammer (illegal in this country), body armor you hope was properly manufactured, and as much vehicle armor as you can get issued or improvise.
In a war where the threat is coming from remotely detonated bombs, snipers, and suicide attacks, it appears that the Army needed to go far beyond recognizing that soldiers in the Combat Arms branches go into harm's way.
The new award has no requirement that the soldiers awarded the CAB be assigned to a particular specialty, only that they were, as I once heard it put "in the land of the two way ranges," and that they did their job in that environment.
This new award seems to recognize in Iraq there's plenty of violence and risk to go around.
If recruiting picks up I guess we'll know that Napoleon was right.