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DragonOfTartarus t1_j9ug3jp wrote

Reply to comment by Valash83 in Pueblo deputy awarded Purple Heart for injuries suffered during shooting of Richard Ward by Drablit

>Not to take away from those who earned a Purple Heart but the military loves to give them out for about anything.

They had crates full of the things left over after WWII because they were made in expectation of an invasion of the Japanese home islands. Naturally the invasion didn't end up happening, so they were just left with a whole bunch of medals and no one to give them to.

I think they're still using those medals to this day. If that's how many they have, I'm not surprised they hand them out like candy.

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Valash83 t1_j9ugtq0 wrote

That and it makes them look good. Kinda "hey we sent this person to an active warzone and they got hurt/killed. But we gave them this medal to make up for it"

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SliceOfCoffee t1_j9uruc4 wrote

They estimated a minimum 800,000 dead, and a total of 1.5-2 Million casulties by US forces alone, plus another million casulties by other allied forces.

The Japanese casulties would of crippled Japan forever.

10-15 Million dead, and another 10 million wounded on top of the dead.

The Atomic bombs seemed like a slap on the wrist compared to the absolute slaughter of Operation Downfall.

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