How times have changed the application of guidelines pertaining to the specific period of an act or wounds incurred sometimes leading to loss of life. The initial guideline for the Purple Heart during WWII was 22 September 1943. It covered the period "since 6 December 1941."
Today, military personnel and civilian employees of the AF and Army are justifying denials based on guidelines after the act or receiving wound(s).
Case in point, to determine if WWII veterans are entitled to certain awards and decorations i.e. Purple Heart and/or Combat Infantryman badge, AR 600-8-22, dated 11 December 2006, PL 104-106, dated 10 February 1996, and War Department Circulars covering the period after the acts during battles are being used to justify denials to such combatants.
Acts and wounds incurred during WWII met circumstances identified in guidelines participants served under. History was made and cannot be erased or ignored. Yet, WWII and Korean War veterans and/or NOK are experiencing such responses from the military.
ISSUE - APPICABILITY OF LATER POLICY
The identified AR 600-8-22, PL 104-106, WD Circulars 186, and 408 for AFBCMR and ABCMR in these cases purports to consider guidelines developed in analyzing after the fact. The unfairness of this consideration is obvious. If it were to be applied to all cases, it would call for the removal of Purple Hearts and/or Combat Infantryman badges from those veterans previously awarded them. In fact application of a later policy to facts surrounding a WWII event constitutes ex post facto application of law, specifically prohibited in the US Constitution by the prohibitions in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3, against bills of attainder and ex post facto laws. Awards and decorations, like other rights, must be considered as of the date that the benefit was earned. Application of different standards, arising out of different sensibilities in different wars, wreaks havoc on any sense of equal application of laws. The fact that the AF and Army, recently chose to change the policy relating to Purple Hearts and CIB cannot be applied to the facts of these cases.
Robert