On the Reasons for Valour Awards in Afghanistan

Selected quotes from the book In Their Own Words.

Sergeant Tower received his decoration for his actions at the White School on 3 August 2006.

"When someone goes down, the next guy takes over. I feel that if I could I’d give a medal to every guy in my platoon that day….Everyone one of them did an amazing job that day and they all own a piece of that medal. They all contributed. I don’t’ see it so much as a medal for me as for all of 9 Platoon.

"A lot of people congratulate you on a medal. But for anyone to get awarded any sort of decoration, something really bad has to happen. If everything is going good, no one is getting a medal. When you read any of these citations, things were pretty much not going as planned. It’s always something going bad."

(In Their Own Words: Canadian Stories of Valour and Bravery from Afghanistan, 2001-2009. Canadian Defence Academy Press, Kingston, 2013. Page 155.)

A new e-book tells personal stories of men awarded decorations for bravery & military valour.

In Their Own Words: Canadian Stories of Valour and Bravery from Afghanistan 2001-2007 is a  419-page book in which 23 decorated Canadian soldiers recount their experiences in Afghanistan during those years. It’s the most personal and revealing account of what our soldiers went through in that period yet published.  It was put together by a team from the Canadian Forces Leadership Institute that travelled across the country to meet these men and record their stories. For some of these men, it may have been difficult to bring back these memories, but I’m glad they did because we need to have books like this to let the Canadian public know what our soldiers did over there, especially in their own words and not through journalists or public affairs officers. I say bravo to them all. The e-book I received is an advanced copy and I am patiently waiting for the hard copy version.

From the Canadian Defence Academy Press, 2013.

It took me some time, but I've finally got the final numbers right for awards of Decorations  for Military Valour (MVDs) as a result of the Afghan combat mission. Thanks to the great cooperation of Major Carl Gauthier of the Directorate of Honours and Recognition in DND, the figures in my data base reconcile with his totals. So now I can proceed to complete the new chapter on Afghanistan for the revised edition of my book Courage Rewarded.

So, for the entire period of Operations Opollo and Athena from January 2001 to July 2011, the numbers of awards to Canadian Forces personnel, from the army, air force and navy, were the following –

• 20 Stars of Military Valour,
• 89 Medals of Military Valour, and
• 308 Mentions in Despatches. 
  
  

Of the above, 4 SMVs, 4 MMVs and 32 MIDs were awarded to the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, although the citations are not publicly available.

These awards were the first to be made since the new Canadian Honours System was instituted because they can only be made for actions in the face of enemy  fire.  Unfortunately, during peacekeeping operations, there was no declared “enemy” so, in Bosnia, when Canadian soldiers came under fire from hostile local forces and risked their lives to keep the opposing sides apart, no MVDs could be awarded. Courageous acts were thankfully recognized by other awards such as the Meritorious Service Cross or Medal of Bravery, and the recipients should be equally proud of that recognition.

The publicly-available citations for the MVDs can all be found in the annual reports from the Directorate of Honours and Awards. While the descriptions are brief, they give a fascinating glimpse into the intensity of combat that our men and women faced in Afghanistan.

It’s interesting to note that the journalist Murray Brewster has questioned the absence of the Canadian Victoria Cross being awarded amongst the decorations announced ( http://bit.ly/Xx4zml  ). He muses that the reason may have been political; or perhaps just the usual reluctance of higher commanders to view acts of courage by most soldiers as being other than just doing their expected duty.  It is an interesting and worthy question by a journalist who spent many months in the combat zone. He is correct that often such reasons have influenced awards in the past.

But I think the reason for not having any Victoria Cross announcement is more that the standard for the Victoria Cross is extraordinarily high; and reference cannot be made to similar awards in past wars when the standard was not as stringent. Many of the awards of the Star of Military Valour are impressive; but many Mentions in Despatches are also impressive, at that third level of honour.  It seems like the standard for all levels has ratcheted up with each generation as the intensity of combat has changed. Perhaps it is best that we do not have a Victoria Cross winner because many of those were made posthumously.

The combat mission against insurgents in Afghanistan was strange and unique. From all accounts the awards made were appropriate and deserved.