Two second google of Laura Yeager Combat experience yielded : "Yeager has been in the military since 1986 and has an impressive list of accomplishments. She flew UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters in combat in Iraq, and she commanded California National Guard’s 40th Combat Aviation Brigade, according to the Defense Department news service. She was promoted from Colonel to Brigadier General in 2016."
Yeah....real loser......
Maybe you can read this when you come back from space station.
There is flying choppers in combat and then there is flying choppers in combat. Picking up a casualty while under fire is something different from picking up a casualty after the area has been cold for a 1/2 hour or acting as a flying taxi cab for VIP's.
Renegade50 is right if you haven't seen it in person it's hard to describe how messed up the Army award system is. In the Army basically the higher your rank the higher the award you will receive. IE PFC Joe Blow gets a good job from his Bn Commander, SSG Schmuckitelli gets an Army Achievement Medal and CPT Pussnuts gets a Meritorious Service Medal. Even if they all did the same thing to deserve being recognized. Awards for leaving a duty station are common.
The Marines are/were better about this. If a Marine received an award they pretty much deserved it IMO.
Another thing thing is the further away from the pointy end you were the worse the awards inflation was. Prior to 9/11 I was in a Cav unit and the SOP was that every big field problem resulted in 2 enlisted receiving awards, which were usually AAM or ARCOMS. There was a write up about the Post CSM's secretary in the post newspaper one day and she had something like 2 1/2 years service with 4 or 5 each AAM and ARCOMS. You see enough of that stuff and you get kind of jaded.
