Not. Kidding.
An Air Force chaplain has been awarded a Bronze Star for his service in crafting an especially good PowerPoint about how to treat Islamic religious materials with sensitivity, according to Ohio’s Dayton Daily News. After U.S. troops in Afghanistan accidentally burned copies of the Koran, sparking riots that took over 30 lives, Lieutenant Colonel Jon Trainer came to the rescue:
After the accidental burning last year of Qurans by U.S. troops in Afghanistan sparked deadly rioting, an Air National Guard chaplain from Springfield stepped in and potentially saved countless American lives.
For his effort, Lt. Col. Jon Trainer received the prestigious Bronze Star — a medal given for heroic or meritorious achievement in connection with operations against an armed enemy.
And he did it with a PowerPoint presentation. . . .
Within 48 hours, Trainer developed a PowerPoint presentation on the proper handling and disposal of Islamic religious material that was seen by every American — military and civilian alike — in Afghanistan. The presentation then was distributed to the U.S. for use in all pre-deployment training.
The piece explains that Trainer also helped teach service members just how wide the breadth of their sensitivity had to be, covering what constitutes Islamic religious material in the first place. “When a Muslim writes down even a few verses from the Quran on a piece of paper,” he told the paper, “that immediately gets that same protected status.”
Trainer is a nondenominational Christian minister who has been in the Air Force for 17 years. He is also being recognized for his work running the Army’s suicide-prevention program, in which he’s trained more than 36,000 service members.
The Bronze Star is the U.S. military’s fifth most prestigious combat award, and can be awarded for acts of merit or valor in a combat zone (if the military deems it an act of heroism, the award is given with a “V” device).
Well, there went my lunch.
Sorry.
In other news, the Congressional Medal of Honor will now be granted to those who can go potty unattended.
I broke my toe, some years ago. Can I get an award?
I broke my right-hand’s middle finger when I was 16 (made for a cute case) …May I have one also?
Wonder if the Nobel Committee feels any shame for this? They should. They made formally prestigious earned awards meaningless.
VFW and Congress have teamed up to oppose Obama’s latest folly – new drone strike medal that ranks above The Purple Heart. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) has introduced legislation to require that the Purple Heart occupy a position of precedence above the new Distinguished Warfare Medal. The bipartisan bill has 42 cosponsors including a few Democrats. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/03/vfw-and-congressional-members-join-in-protest-of-obamas-new-drone-strike-medal/
The VFW added this in their action alert:
The newly created medal would outrank the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. The VFW immediately came out in opposition of the placement of the medal. We believe it is very important to properly recognize all who serve and excel, but the new medal could spark internal debate and deteriorate morale as it leapfrogs more than a dozen current medals and ribbons – to include valor and combat injury awards.
Not just the Bronze Star Pat, it outranks the Bronze Star with V device.
Kinda diminishes the award..
When the Bible and Torah are treated with sensitivity, I will take this seriously.
Exactly.
All right already I’m sensitive! I’m so sensitive it’s starting to chafe! Now leave me alone.
Well, I am seeing about 6 shades of red right now. I am trying not to go angry mouth, out of respect for Tammy. This is serious bravo sierra, and whoever wrote this excrement brained tuchuslecker up for the award needs to have his commission pulled and find himself cashiered. This is the same type of sewage that got the Lieutenant Colonel kicked from the War College. Overly Politically Correct pig slop mentality that will destroy us with the hatred that it covers. Hatred of the US, Religious Freedom, tolerance and equal rights. The left froths at the mouth claiming to champion freedom, tolerance and equal rights, but then they suck up to these rabid dogs that are against all of these things. People that demand submission to their “god” and religious laws, which subjugate women, kill homosexuals, apostates, and anyone who refuses to convert or pay the dhimmi. I’m on that list right there, as I refuse to convert and I refuse to ever pay them to allow me to live.
With respect to the desperate quest for “sensitivity”….As Tammy has often pointed out, this sort of thing is driven by narcissism. That is to say, the underlying assumption is that everyone in the world is not acting for their own reasons, but is merely reacting to me.
Naturally the people that are targets of our “sensitivity” feel they’re being condescended to. And they’re right.
Then we wonder the friction between cultures gets worse rather than better. I guess we just weren’t sensitive enough.
More damage done by dishonest journalists in the field than inadvertent mishandling of books and notes.
We now teach our troops to have feelings for the Koran(Jihadists), while they teach their troops to cut our haeds off. What the hell happened to the people called the US military who are supposed to protect the citizens of our country. Lord have mercy!
What happened is Leon Panetta, General Martin Dempsey, General Ray Odierno, Admiral Jon Greenert, General James Amos, and General Mark Walsh III. Now, of course, we have Hagel running the show, you can bet these things will be even worse and you can expect draw downs overseas and even less aid to Israel. Since he’s both an isolationist And an anti-Semite.
Worthwhile to check out the, Future Weapons, slide show at NRO. Click thru far enough to see the BigDog and Cheetah robots.
Sorry I am late commenting on this Power Point Warrior, Laugh Out Loud, Laughing Out Loud!
There is another side to this per Allen West. Evidently this man did a lot more than this and was ultimately deserving of some kind of honor for the totality of his career. The act (Power Point presentation) in question was only one duty that he performed over his 22 year career. He did not do it because it was his own idea, but because he was ordered to do so by General Allen, who was, at that time, his commander. Evidently, this story was also given the “Debbie Schlussel treatment.” This is someone who destroyed her credibility years ago.
(The Debbie Schlussel Experience — Pt.1 — http://www.rightwingnews.com/uncategorized/the-debbie-schlussel-experience/ and Pt.2 — http://www.rightwingnews.com/conservatives/the-debbie-schlussel-experience-part-2-the-fixation/)
Here is more from Allen West ===> https://www.facebook.com/notes/allen-west/to-the-national-review-online-this-wrong-needs-to-be-righted/10151506323478307
This has also been added as an UPDATE to the piece by one of the editors:
“UPDATE: An item caught our eye the other day in the Dayton Daily News about Lt. Col. Jon Trainer, an Air Force chaplain, receiving the bronze star. It began:
After the accidental burning last year of Qurans by U.S. troops in Afghanistan sparked deadly rioting, an Air National Guard chaplain from Springfield stepped in and potentially saved countless American lives.
For his effort, Lt. Col. Jon Trainer received the prestigious Bronze Star — a medal given for heroic or meritorious achievement in connection with operations against an armed enemy.
And he did it with a PowerPoint presentation.
The piece went on to describe how Trainer’s PowerPoint on proper handling of the Koran led to him receiving the Bronze Star. Patrick Brennan wrote a post linking to the Dayton story with a headline, “Air Force Chaplain Awarded Bronze Star for PowerPoint Teaching Proper Sensitivity for the Koran,” that spread around the web (Pat also mentioned Trainer’s work training personnel in a suicide prevention program). Lt. Col. Jon Trainer, a NRO reader, has been in touch and convinced me that this isn’t quite fair. He has explained that the Bronze Star was an end of tour award presented to him for meritorious service over the span of his deployment to Afghanistan, which obviously involved more than that PowerPoint. (This story gives a broader sense of his service during the tour.) So there wasn’t anything inaccurate in the Dayton story or Pat’s post, but they created a misimpression about the centrality of the PowerPoint to Trainer’s Bronze Star. I wanted to provide this fuller context and take the opportunity to salute Trainer for his service to our country.
–Rich Lowry”
SO that’s the “rest of the story” as the saying goes; you decide.