History
At the start of World War I, the Navy had the Medal of Honor as the only decoration with which to recognize heroism. To recognize acts deserving recognition, but at a level below that required for the Medal of Honor, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal and the Navy Cross were created by Public Law 253 on 4 February 1919. The law made the award retroactive to 6 April 1917. The first award of the decoration was a posthumous presentation to Brigadier General Charles A. Doyen, USMC, on 13 March 1919. Originally, senior in precedence to the Navy Cross, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal assumed it current place below the Navy Cross by congressional action on 7 August 1942
Read more about this topic: Navy Distinguished Service Medal
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“Indeed, the Englishman’s history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)