Half a Million Purple Hearts (December 2000 | Volume: 51, Issue: 8)

Half a Million Purple Hearts

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Authors: Kathryn Moore, D. M. Giangreco

Historic Era: Era 10: Contemporary United States (1968 to the present)

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December 2000 | Volume 51, Issue 8

Early last year, just as NATO was stepping up its bombing campaign in Kosovo, the news broke that the United States was manufacturing 9,000 new Purple Hearts, the decoration that goes to American troops wounded in battle and the families of those killed in action. To the media, this seemed a clear indication that despite its pledge not to send in ground forces, the United States was planning to do just that. “Why in good God’s name are we making Purple Hearts if we are not in a war and we don’t expect casualties?” asked the New York Post.

But, in fact, the run of medals had nothing to do with imminent combat; rather it cast light backward on a long-ago war. For this was the first large-scale production of the decoration since World War II; for more than half a century, American casualties have been receiving Purple Hearts stockpiled for the invasion of Japan. All the other implements of that war—tanks and LSTs, bullets and K rations—have long since been sold, scraooed. or used up, but these medals, struck for their grandfathers, are still being pinned on the chests of young soldiers.

More than 370,000 Purple Hearts have been issued between the outbreak of the Korean War through the current peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. Remarkably, some 120,000 more are still in the hands of the armed services, not only stockpiled at military supply depots but kept with major combat units and at field hospitals so that they can be awarded without delay. But although great numbers of the World War II stock are still available and ready for use, those controversial 9,000 new ones were ordered for the simplest of bureaucratic reasons: So many medals had been transferred to the armed services that the government organization responsible for procuring them, the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia, had to replenish its own inventory.

Established as the Badge of Military Merit in 1782, the decoration was Gen. George Washington’s way around congressional unwillingness to reward ordinary soldiers for extraordinary deeds. In the eighteenth century, the traditional practice among all armies of the world was to present decorations only to officers. Early in the war, the new American army used promotion to reward exceptional gallantry, but as money dwindled the military found such promotions to be a hard sell with Congress.

In the hard-pressed Continental Army, there were often no funds to pay a soldier at his existing rank, let alone for a promotion. Still, some way had to be found, said Inspector General Baron von Steuben, to recognize “soldiers who have served with fidelity.” Washington’s answer was to order narrow strips of cloth added to the lower left sleeve of a uniform to denote length of service (these are commonly referred to today as hash marks ) and the creation of the Badge of Military Merit for “singularly meritorious action” as well as for “extraordinary fidelity and