The commentator who posted about this called it an "absurd" decision. A "gutless and heartless decision" seems more appropriate to me:
Last Friday, the U.S. Army formally decided not to award Purple Heart medals to the victims of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, which claimed 13 lives and wounded 32 people. The Army preposterously claims that handing out medals would damage Major Nidal Hasan’s “ability to receive a fair trial.”
The Army issued a “position paper” in which it expressed concern that awarding the medal to the shooting victims “would set the stage for a formal declaration that Major Hasan is a terrorist.” This is because the Purple Heart is awarded to those who have been “wounded or killed in any action against an enemy of the United States.”
Hasan is a terrorist, and thus an enemy combatant, so what he did was an act of war. The FBI has called his rampage an act of terrorism, as has Congress. It's only the Obama administration's craven determination to never "insult" Islam that leads them to think of of it as "an incident or workplace violence." Hasan will be tried by fellow Army officers well-versed in military jurisprudence, not a gaggle of low-information goofballs plucked off the street for jury duty. Solders were wounded -- giving them the appropriate recognition for that is not likely to have any affect at all on the trial of the man alleged to have done the shooting. To pretend it will is an insult to our intelligence and an unforgivable slight of our fighting men and women.
