I was reading this post at a political blog, which concerns a letter signed by several veterans of the US armed forces.
“This letter was signed by hundreds of special ops vets including 20 Generals, over 60 colonels, over 60 Lt Colonels and two Medal of Honor winners.”
(Emphasis mine.)
Excuse me, but don’t people earn a Medal of Honor?
The author of the linked essay is always careful to show the proper respect to the members of our military. I am positive that he didn’t mean anything by his remark, except to acknowledge the well deserved honors bestowed upon the two individuals he mentions. In fact, stating that someone won a MoH is a very common expression here in the US.
But I still am not very comfortable with the term. After all, I doubt very many of my readers from the UK would say that people awarded the Victoria Cross were lucky enough to win that award.
I’ve corrected the post, I should know better too.
After all if you could “win” an honor it’s not an honor it’s a payment
On the other hand, you can sometimes win a “Prize” for pretty much doing nothing. As in the case of the “Nobel Peace Prize”, for instance.
You receive the Medal of Honor. The proper term is Medal of Honor recipient.
No one wins one. These “winners” generally went through hell.
I’m with Kristophr. A Medal of Honor recipient has received the Medal of Honor.
And thank you, all of you, for not calling it the Congressional Medal of Honor (or, worse yet, with the casual familiarity of the ultimate insider, CMoH!).
The lucky part is being alive to receive it since most are awarded posthumously.
Recipient, absolutely. It is an uncommon honor of terrible portent bestowed upon the unlucky recipient.
And most recipients know someone else who should have gotten one, instead of himself.
In my 23 years of active duty, I met three Medal of Honor recipients, and counted each one a signal honor which, taken alone, would have been the highlight of my career.
One of my cousins wrote a recommendation for an Medal of Honor and it was awarded, sadly, posthumously. He also wrote another recommendation for the Navy Cross for another Marine, also posthumously, but that was upgraded to the Medal of Honor.
“Win” is appropriate; the etymology of the word ‘win’ is the sense of fighting and winning a struggle. Success in strife, toil, and conflict. The same sense as in “We win battles”.