Heroism Can Be Easy

Among the highest and rarest medals for heroism in the nation's gift are the Distinguished Service Cross (for "extraordinary heroism . . . against an armed enemy") and the Silver Star (for "gallantry in action"). But by last week the Cross and the Star were beginning to seem neither so high nor so rare.

In Korea, reporters totted up the awards bestowed by General Douglas MacArthur and the Air Force's Lieut. General George Stratemeyer. Stratemeyer had awarded Silver Stars to seven of his back-in-Japan staff officers. One brigadier general got his for assuring the "constant and uninterrupted flow of material," other staff generals for being "subject to enemy air and ground attack" during occasional flying trips to Korea.

Douglas MacArthur had been similarly generous. His surgeon general and his chief of intelligence got Silver Stars. At the Inchon landing, MacArthur approached the beach in a landing craft, but was persuaded to go no closer by the Seventh Fleet's commander, Vice Admiral Arthur D. Struble. Later, MacArthur decorated Struble with the Distinguished Service Cross, though Struble had done little more, heroically speaking, than stand on his bridge in a calm sea. Vice Admiral C. T. Joy, Far East naval commander, got one too. When MacArthur finally landed, he passed out Silver Stars to three Marine officers--and two South Korean naval officers who happened to be passing by.

MacArthur topped this off with another Cross to Stratemeyer for "continually subjecting himself to great danger" in directing the evacuation of U.S. civilians from advanced airfields. And Stratemeyer awarded MacArthur the Distinguished Flying Cross ("for heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight"), on the ground that MacArthur's flying visits to Korea were made "under conditions presenting the threat of hostile air interception."

Somehow, the flow of bright ribbons was still not trickling down to the enlisted ranks.* Near Waegwan a few months ago, a corporal named Everett L. Elmore headed his boat across the bullet-torn Naktong River for the enemy-held shore. Mortar shells crashed alongside, machine-gun bullets stitched a pattern against its sides. Corporal Elmore rallied his panic-stricken passengers, delivered them to the beachhead, and went back for more. On his last trip, Corporal Elmore was mortally hit. He got the Bronze Star Medal--posthumously--an award for "heroic achievement" not deemed to be of sufficient degree to merit a Distinguished Service Cross or a Silver Star.

*Last week Army Secretary Frank Pace and Chief of Staff J. Lawton Collins pinned the first Korean campaign ribbons (blue with white stripes) on three wounded veterans in Washington's Walter Reed hospital.

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