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President's Message PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Dear Fellow OMSA Search. These past issues will be available in a “members- Members: only” section; but, to ensure that the value of being a member is not diminished, we will hold back the last three If you haven’t registered years of the Journal from the website. Consequently, if for the OMSA Convention we launch the digitized members-only section later this in Milwaukee, it is not too year, you would have access to Journals through 2009. late. Please do it now! The Expect to hear more on this project in the coming months. registration form can be found in the March-April Latest News on the Stolen Valor Act: On June 3, 2013, issue of JOMSA and at President Obama signed the Stolen Valor Act of 2013. www.omsa.org. This new legislation corrects that portion of United States law relating to military awards that the Supreme Court As a result of the success of decided was unconstitutional in the Alvarez case. You will the first OMSA Convention remember that Alvarez falsely claimed that he had been Auction, conducted last year in Dallas, every member awarded the Medal of Honor. While this was untrue, the who attends the convention in Milwaukee will receive Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment prevented a voucher worth $25 toward the purchase of OMSA Alvarez from being convicted for lying about having publications. The voucher must be used at the convention, been awarded our highest military decoration. After the and is good for any, and all, publications. If Steve Court’s generally unpopular decision, Representative Joe Watts, our Publications Manager, runs out of a book or Heck introduced legislation to “fix” the Alvarez problem; monograph that you want to purchase, he will mail it to the amendment being that anyone who, with “fraudulent you, post-free, after the convention. The other benefit ... intent to obtain money, property, or other tangible for those attending the Convention, again being made benefit ... holds oneself out to be a recipient of a [specific] possible by the success of last year’s auction, is that decoration or medal” is guilty of a misdemeanor. every registrant will receive a drink ticket good for one alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage at the Thursday Representative Heck’s bill had 127 co-sponsors in the evening cocktail party. House and passed without amendment in the Senate. There was no argument about the desire for this legislative Our newest monograph will be out by the time you read fix. The specific decorations, medals, and badges that this and will be available for sale at the convention. are covered by the new law are: the Medals of Honor, Longtime member and former Board member Bill Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, Air Force Emerson has done a masterful job in producing a second Cross, Silver Star, Purple Heart, Combat Infantryman edition of Tony Margrave’s superb Medals for Service Badge, Combat Action Badge, Combat Medical Badge, in Mexico and on the Mexican Border. Bill, assisted by Combat Action Ribbon, and Combat Action Medal. other OMSA members, added 21 more medals to the existing text. The completely revised monograph includes The law will have no effect on OMSA, or our hobby, many new color photographs of state and local medals. since in collecting (and buying and selling and trading) There also is much new information in the monograph, United States awards, we don’t claim to be recipients nor including a table identifying all national guard units called do we have any fraudulent intent to obtain something to duty and showing where they served, a table showing of value. Note that, for the first time, the law makes it a the location of Regular Army units on the Mexican crime to claim to have a combat-related badge in order border, and a synopsis of national guard division service to obtain something of value. This new Act only amends in the American Expeditionary Force. The hardcover existing law; it does not replace it, which means that the monograph measures 8 x 10 inches and runs to almost prohibition against selling, buying or trading the Medal of 200 pages. Contact Steve Watts directly if you want a Honor is still in effect. Note also that the law only covers copy or pick one up at the convention. “tangible” things (and not items of “intangible” value). Finally, your Board has authorized our website team Please do not hesitate to contact me by email (or phone) to proceed with digitizing the past 50-plus years of the if you have any questions or concerns. Journal, which we will then post on the OMSA website. The plan for each issue of the Journal to be searchable Best to all, Fred using commercially available tools like Google Site- 2 JOMSA MEET THE AUTHORS Fred Borch has been an OMSA member for more than ancient Comtat Venaissin (papal lands), near Avignon. 25 years and is now serving as OMSA president. He He is a member of many cultural associations concerned was recently awarded a Fulbright to the Netherlands for with history and heritage and with the Archaeological 2012-2013 and was a Visiting Professor at the University Museum in Le Pegue. Specialising in phaleristics (the of Leiden. study of medals), he is the author of many publications on this theme. In collaboration with Daniel Werba, he Tim Brown is a practicing lawyer in Austin, Texas, has recently published a book on the awards given by with a specialty in water rights. As an undergraduate in the French Dioceses, which has received an award from history, he developed and has long held a fascination the Académie Francaise (Prix Comte de Saint-Priest for Austria. This is his third article in the Journal and d’Urgel). Henri Veyradier is a rector of one of the last a second paper that was presented at the annual OMSA brotherhoods of Penitents in France, a knight of the convention. Tim is a frequent speaker at legal seminars Palmes Académiques, the Mérite Agricole, the l’Ordre du where a written paper is always expected. For the benefit Mérite, and the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of members who cannot attend the OMSA convention, of Jerusalem. Tim urges those persons presenting seminar topics to present their presentations in writing for the benefit of all the members to enjoy. WOULD YOU LIKE Ed Emering is an award-winning Chicago-based author of historical books and articles and a photographer. He has contributed over 50 articles to JOMSA and has authored TO SEE YOUR numerous books, including four OMSA monographs (the last of which was published in December 2012). Ed also BIOGRAPHY maintains “The Medal Hound” (www.themedalhound. com), an ever-expanding free research service for medal ON THIS PAGE? collectors with interests in those areas covered by the site. Stephen J. Shaw has been an OMSA member since 1996. He resides in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and is a retired middle-school teacher. He served on active duty for four SEND AN ARTICLE and a half years with the United States Marine Corps and 20 years with the Pennsylvania National Guard, retiring TO JOMSA as a Command Sergeant Major. His main interests are the Spanish Civil War and Iron Crosses. He is a volunteer TODAY! with the Lancaster County Red Rose Honor Guard which renders military funeral honors for those who served their country. He has had articles published in JOMSA and the Token and Medals Society Magazine. PLAN NOW TO ATTEND Daniel E. Speir is an attorney in Kansas City, Missouri and a retired judge advocate in the United States Army Reserve. He retired in January, 2012 after 30 years as OMSA 2013 a reserve police officer with the Kansas City Police Department. His collecting interests include campaign medals of the world from 1820 to 1945. AUGUST 8 - 11, 2013 Henri Veyradier was born in 1952 in Aubenas in the Ardech, south-eastern France. He has a degree in history from the University of Grenoble and teaches CROWNE PLAZA this subject in various academic institutions. He lives in MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN Valéas, the capital of the Enclave des Papes, part of the Vol. 64, No. 4 (July-August 2013) 3 DECORATIONS AND MEDALS TO PRISONERS OF WAR: A FASCINATING STORY OF EVOLVING VIEWS AND PEOPLE FRED L. BORCH Introduction were taken prisoner by the Germans in the 19 months that the AEF was in combat.3 Less than 30 years later, Over the last 100 years, there has been an evolution in the Germans, Italians and Japanese took another 130,201 thinking about prisoners of war (POWs) in the United American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines prisoner States armed forces, an evolution that has been reflected and 14,072 died in captivity before the war ended in 1945. in the ever-increasing number of decorations and medals awarded to those men and women who have been While there was no doubt that most of them conducted captured by the enemy and held as POWs. This article themselves honorably, being a POW was still seen to be first looks at the evolution in views about POWs over an “undesirable status,” at least by the War Department. the last 100 years, an evolution that culminated in the For example, when the father of a POW held in Germany creation of a POW medal. It then looks at decorations and wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt in late 1944, asking if the medals awarded to Americans held as combat captives U.S. was going “to award some sort of ribbon or other in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold memento or medal signifying a soldier was a POW,” the War, Operation Desert Storm, the Balkans, Iraq and answer from the Army was “no.” 4 Afghanistan.
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