Cold War Veterans Blog

CWSM Article

I want my Cold War Service Medal, and I want it now!!

A interesting article by

Karl Leuba

Back to Senator Martinez, and what he found important this week. At least the top two things he reports doing. Wait, Number one on his list is not what he has done for us, but what we can do for the troops overseas. Number two was a story of how he helped one of my fellow cold war vets. If you, like me, don't think the government is doing any where near enough for the men and women who serve in the Armed forces during these turbulent, war torn times, here is the list of organizations Senator Martinez recommends.

Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society www.nmcrs.org

Army Emergency Relief www.aerhq.org

Air Force Aid Society www.afas.org

Coast Guard Mutual Relief www.cgmahq.org

Wounded Warrior Project www.woundedwarriorproject.com

Remember this is the Senator's list, not mine, so please, if you have comments about any of the organizations, send them to his office. His Washington office address is:

United States Senate
356 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

The Phone Number for Senator Martinez is:

(202) 224-3041.

The Senators second story follows, in "cut and paste" form.

Casework Corner*

Mr. Dyson served in the military during the Cold War. He contacted the Office of Senator Martinez for assistance in requesting a medal from the U.S. Government for his service.

A caseworker contacted the Army's Human Resources Command and learned that a medal for Cold War Service has not been officially approved, but an official certificate of service is available. The caseworker submitted Mr. Dyson's paperwork to the Army, proving his Cold War Service. As a result, Mr. Dyson recently learned he would receive a Government-issued Cold War Recognition Certificate for his service.

If you have questions about a federal agency, please contact the Orlando Regional Office by calling (407) 254-2573 to speak with a member of the Casework Department. The toll-free number for Florida residents is (866) 630-7106. To find out more about how my Office can help you, go to http://martinez.senate.gov or stop by one of our scheduled Community Office Hours in your area.

*Casework Corner is a real account of assistance provided to constituents. The names of those involved are changed to protect the privacy of the constituent.

Right below that is the option to cancel subscriptions to the Senator Mel Martinez newsletter.
I am not going to do that. I am hoping, since I am a cold war veteran, and while we did not do a lot of murder and mayhem, we did play a very large role in containing Communist North Korea, Communist Cuba, Communist China, and the Super Power, the Communist Soviet Union, home of Lenin and Stalin that I can get a medal approved.

This might be appropriate for that medal, just replace the Tsar and the Russian writing with a portrait of Dwight David Eisenhower, and a motto in English, or latin, saying In Service of World Peace.

Karl Marx, the "Father of Communism" lived and died in non Communist London, England, and did not think highly of the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, or Cuba. He was a philosopher, and a humanist, and really was not involved in Communist politics much.

I started out on this unabashed and unashamed bash with the idea of lobbying all of you to ask your Senators and Representatives to legislate a medal for all of us cold warriors, but until today I had not thought of asking for one. I had not even thought of asking if the fact that I was never awarded the good conduct medal might have been a bureaucratic bungle, like the fact that I got three of the four Polio vaccines seven times, and never was stuck with the fourth one. Cold Warriors, except for the ones who served after 1958, when the Vietnam War Started did not even have GI bill benefits until into the 1970's. And that was only because the Vietnam war became ours when the French Gave up on Indo China. Those people wanted to be independent. They fought contiuously from 1945 to the 1970's. They won, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam are all free of occupation. They should be thanking the Americans for keeping the Chinese out of their countries. But, I don't think they much care for the way we did it, carpet bombing is not a very good way to make friends.

I hope you enjoyed this dispatch from Mel Martinez, and the rest of the BS that I sent out.
Karl.