Army Can't Explain How Gen. Clark Got Kosovo Campaign Medal Waiver
European Stars and Stripes
June 16, 2001
Army Can't Explain How Gen. Clark Got Kosovo Campaign Medal Waiver
By Jon R. Anderson, Stars and Stripes
The Army is at a loss to explain who granted a waiver awarding retired Gen.
Wesley Clark the Kosovo Campaign Medal.
After four months of repeated queries, Army officials say they’re still not
sure who approved the medal.
Privately, officials say, they believe former Defense Secretary William
Cohen approved the award, but have been unable to find
the requisite "paper trail" for such awards to make sure.
Cohen was not available for comment Friday.
One senior Pentagon official speculated Clark may have been given the medal
"as a memento or token" without actually being
"awarded" the campaign ribbon.
The Army says no way.
"Nowhere in the military do we hand out awards as mementos," said Col.
Stephanie Hoehne, Clark’s former aide and now a
top Army spokeswoman.
"They are earned and they are awarded. When your boss pins an award on your
chest, that’s ‘being awarded.’"
Citing how paperwork sometimes gets misplaced or forgotten after verbal
approval for an award is given, Hoehne said, "I’m
not surprised it didn’t make it into his records, if that’s the case."
That he needed a waiver at all has been a sticky issue for top officials who
have been wrestling for more than a year with how
to fix controversial criteria for the medal that has left thousands of
troops who directly supported the 1999 air campaign
unrecognized.
Under rules for the medal established by the Pentagon, only those who served
in and around the Balkans are eligible for the
decoration.
Service members must have served at least 30 consecutive days in the combat
zone or 60 non-consecutive days traveling in and
out of it.
With Clark directing the 78-day air campaign mostly from his headquarters in
Mons, Belgium, he and his staff — not to
mention thousands of troops supporting the effort from bases throughout
Europe and the United States — were left ineligible.
According to European Command officials, Clark clearly did not meet the
criteria and they were surprised to learn he had been
awarded the medal last year.
In fact, Clark received the very first of the newly minted medals during his
retirement ceremony June 23, 2000, presided over
by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki.
For his part, Clark told Stars and Stripes in February that he had no idea
that he had needed a waiver and said that the medal
was "never meant to be a danger- or location-based award, but a
service-based award."
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