The Medal of Honor, Combat Orientations and Latent Role Structure in the United States Military

Abstract

This study presents data on activities for which the Congressional Medal of Honor was presented. We identify two combat orientations among military personnel, which we label war winning and soldier saving. The former is most clearly associated with officers, the latter with low-ranking enlisted men. We suggest that this social-psychological orientation corresponds to a latent role structure within the military based upon a military ethic, and that the Medal of Honor rewards enactment of this latent role structure.

Studies on Documented Historical Cases of Civil and War Heroism: A Mini-Review

“…Riemer published four quantitative analyses of data extracted from MOH case reports (Blake, 1973(Blake, , 1978Blake & Butler, 1976;Riemer, 1998). In his first two studies, Blake categorized the heroic actions performed and analyzed the correlation of these different kinds of actions with the ranks of the soldiers performing them (Blake 1973;Blake & Butler 1976). In addition, he also analyzed the correlation of soldiers" ranks and their mortality during or as an immediate consequence of their heroic actions.…”

Prize Proliferation1

“…Prize proliferation and symbolic inflation also have the potential to create confusion about the relative value of honors. Thus, Phi Beta Kappa, which views itself as the most prestigious academic honor society, has expressed concern about ''membership resistance,'' that is, students turning down invitations to join: ''The popularity of [other honor societies] 22 Blake (1973;Blake and Butler, 1976) argues that enlisted men and officers in the Vietnam War received the Congressional Medal of Honor for different sorts of heroism; officers were rewarded for ''war-winning'' acts of leadership. Although this is a rare award, a higher proportion of recipients were officers in Vietnam than in the Korean War, and the officers were much less likely to receive the award posthumously.…”

“…22 22 Blake (1973; Blake and Butler, 1976) argues that enlisted men and officers in the Vietnam War received the Congressional Medal of Honor for different sorts of heroism; officers were rewarded for “war‐winning” acts of leadership. Although this is a rare award, a higher proportion of recipients were officers in Vietnam than in the Korean War, and the officers were much less likely to receive the award posthumously.…”

Death by Hand Grenade: Altruistic Suicide in Combat

“…However, we question Durkheim's specific finding that the rate of altruistic suicide is higher for career officers and noncommissioned officers because we question his assumption that the latter are most integrated into the group, at least in combat situations and in wartime. In a previous paper (Blake & Butler, 1976) we argued from the literature that enlisted men were more likely than officers to be loyal to the group of which they were a part, while officers' loyalty was more likely to be to the profession and the mission. Following this same line of reasoning, we believe that rates of altruistic suicide should be higher among enlisted men than among officers.…”

“…We must consider the nature of the act itself. In previous work (Blake & Butler, 1976), we identified several categories of combat act, including rescue, extra-aggressive and grenade. Only the last involves the element of self-sacrifice for one's comrades as a prime ingredient.…”