Awards Of Guilt: A Purple Heart

Awards of Guilt It’s the late 1910’s, a nurse for a hospital that treats WW1 soldiers was recently assigned to a new patient and her first shift begins tonight. She prepares like she would for any other patient, then enters the room for the first time. When she enters, she stands in the doorway unable to move, too shocked by the sight she has come across. Laying in the bed, where a man was supposed to be, was a distorted figure. The figure had the body of a man, but was missing the arms, the legs and where a face was supposed to be was just a cloth covering a gaping hole. The only way she truly knew this was a man, was by the war medal pinned on his hospital gown over his left breast. Although this may seem like a farfetched situation, this …show more content…
This is time of war, so casualties and wounded soldiers are understandable, but the only way the military really repays the injured soldiers and the families of the dead soldiers is by awarding them a Purple Heart. A Purple Heart is awarded to any member of Armed force who, while serving under the competent authority in any capacity of the U.S. Armed Services after 5 April 1917, has been wounded or killed, or who has died or may die after being wounded (jsdfhsl). In other words, the Purple Heart is the military’s thank you and apology for the wound or death that the person sacrificed for their country. The U.S. military has now given out rough 1.8 million of these apologies since they started back in 1917 (230). Thinking about 1.8 million awards over the course of just under a hundred years really doesn’t seem that bad, but thinking about them as what they are representing is almost sickening. They represent 1.8 million lives that have been ended or altered drastically due to military combat. A lot of which, when looked back on by historians, was utterly unnecessary to be involved in. Would that number of people be just as large if the military truly looked at the soldiers as humans instead of numbers? Probably not, but it was time of war and we must give the military the benefit of the doubt, …show more content…
Parents are losing children, children are losing mothers and fathers, and siblings are losing brothers and sisters. Even if some are fortunate to make it home, they will still not be the same person as they were when they left. Many come home wounded, some so bad that doing daily functions become impossible tasks for them. The military assumes giving these wounded soldiers and the families of those who have fallen a Purple Heart will just suddenly make up for the fact that they are dead or living through a life of struggle. The problem is that a medal can’t even come close to making up for what they have gone through. Giving out all these Purple Hearts just makes the military look like the good guys instead of the heartless force they really are. If they truly care about all of the people who have served, veterans like Sam Ferris wouldn’t have to fight for their right to be award the honors they have earned and deserve. People really need to understand how much the military uses soldiers as just numbers and not actual humans. They are only humans when they are no longer any use to them as fighters, so only after Johnny got his