Medals for Everybody

For "singlehandedly" wiping out a machine-gun nest in Italy, a dog named Chips was awarded the D.S.C., the Silver Star and the Purple Heart (TIME, Nov. 22, Jan. 24). Last week this impressive sweep of medals appeared likely to stand in the records for a long time, maybe forever.

The Army's Adjutant General, Major General James A. Ulio, ruled, following protests, that Chips could keep his medals but no more medals would be allowed to dogs. Solemnly the War Department warned its troop commanders: "If it is desired to recognize the outstanding services of an animal or fowl, appropriate citation may be published in unit general orders."

Chips's owner, Mrs. Edward J. Wren of Pleasantville, N.Y., said she thought dogs ought to have medals, but she had a feeling Chips himself would have preferred a pound of hamburger.

Some statistics from Washington last week indicated that gallantry medals were becoming more plentiful than hamburgers. >During the first 25 months of war the Army handed out 126,525 decorations. The Navy, about one-third as large and more chary of its decorations, had given 7,073. But the Navy had been more generous with the top-ranking Congressional Medal of Honor (43 awards', including 14 to Marines, one to a Coast Guardsman, against the Army's 32). > Eight out of nine Army awards were D.F.C.s and Air Medals for flyers. Regardless of any heroism or merit involved, an Air Medal is usually awarded for five combat flights; an oakleaf cluster for each additional five. Result: 40,585 Air Medals, plus 58,596 clusters, accounted for four-fifths of the Army tinsel factory output.

Such wide generosity has long irked foot soldiers and sailors who note flyers wearing as many as 14 decorations. But something is being done about it. This month President Roosevelt ordered Secretaries Knox and Stimson to formulate regulations for a new medal, the Bronze Star, to be awarded Army, Navy and Marine Corps personnel "for heroic or meritorious service not involving aerial flight," i.e., a sort of Air Medal for ground and surface forces.

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