Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel rolled back a decision by his predecessor, Leon Panetta, who two months ago unveiled a “Distinguished Warfare Medal” outranking the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart, awarded to wounded troops.

Hagel, a Vietnam veteran with two Purple Hearts, said instead the Pentagon would create a “distinguishing device” that can be affixed to existing medals.

Opponents had decried Panetta’s high placement of the medal, which was meant to be a nod to the changing nature of warfare and represented the most substantial shakeup in the hierarchy of military medals since World War Two.

Brian Jopek, whose 20-year-old son, Ryan, earned a Bronze Star when he was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2006, had branded Panetta’s decision a “slap in the face.

Click below for the full article.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/15/us-usa-pentagon-medal-idUSBRE93E12V20130415