To the Editor:
As Commander of the AMVETS Post 144, member of Disabled American Veterans (DAV) QC Chapter 2, and friend to other U.S. special operations forces including the Navy Seals, I am writing to express my concern about the term “winner” in the heading of the article about Senior Chief Edward Byers, Jr.
He was the first Navy Seal since the Vietnam conflict to receive the Medal of Honor for a combat mission which he survived (at least one other Navy Seal did not survive this particular action, and Navy Seals for other actions since Vietnam received their medals posthumously). I am certain that Senior Chief Byers and most other wartime and peacetime veterans, myself included, will tell you that he did not “win” the U.S. military’s highest decoration for combat valor. Instead, he “earned” it and is a Medal of Honor “recipient.” For further information about the Medal of Honor, I refer your readers to the official website: www.cmohs.org/
recipient-archive-php.
Further, I greatly appreciate the article’s referring to the Medal of Honor by its proper name, and not the “Congressional Medal of Honor” as many people, movies, media, etc often erroneously call it.
Randy Snook, Cmdr. AMVETS Post 144
Davenport
