It's been over a month, so maybe I need to refresh my memory, but I'm not sure I understand what you are arguing. As I understand it, you assert that we're fighting a "redefined type of combat," whatever that is, and this, I guess, justifies some kind of award?

After that, you completely lost me with the random comments about sideburns, Robin Sage, vague assertion about "senior leaders are training one way and asking soldiers to perform another way," some apparent gulf in skills required by COIN and other ops, and combat patches in Crystal City.