Talk:Michael Blassie

Medal of Honor

Since the Vietnam unknown was awarded the MoH, does this award transfer to Blassie? --Daysleeper47 (talk) 13:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

No it does not. The MoH that was awarded to the Unknown was a symbolic bestowing to all the unidentified servicemen who served in Vietnam. Although Blassie was a decorated flier, he had not been recommended at any time as having been deserving of the MoH. There are stringent criteria for individuals to receive the nation's highest decoration. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.146.4.5 (talk) 20:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I've added a modest footnote linking to an official statement from the Department of Defense regarding the disposition of the medal. There is considerable controversy by partisans on each side of this issue, but the facts deserve mention at least. Lee-Anne (talk) 17:54, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

== Victoria Cross ==

The same can be said of the Victoria Cross awarded to the other Unknowns. The awards are symbolic in nature. It would not be appropriate for an identified Unknown to retain either medal post-ID unless they had individually earned it in combat in the first place.

Name

The article states his name as Michael John Blassie, yet his headstone reads Michael Joseph Blassie. Any reason for this? Emops 01:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008

Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 18:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Why?

Just curious as to why they decided to exhume and DNA test the soldier? Given the symbolic nature soldier's anonymity, it seems strange to do so. Also, this article says that after recieving permission from Blassie's family they exhumed and tested the remains - how did they know which family to get permission from? 193.194.132.70 (talk) 11:37, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm just as curious to this - I'm guessing that where he was lost was similar to where they found the remains that ended up being interred, but the article really does leap ahead on that subject.--Pittsburghmuggle (talk) 17:19, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I came to ask the same thing. After a bit of searching I found the answer, I'll work it into the article today. 87.80.97.137 (talk) 11:41, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I will answer this from personal knowledge of why. The United States government considers finding closure for families whose loved ones never returned from combat to be far more important than maintaining an anonymous grave.2600:8804:400:9E50:75F0:8D0D:15EA:7AF7 (talk) 04:31, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Except that in this case that's not true; the Department of Defense deliberately classified Blassie's remains as "unknown" in order to have an unknown soldier to bury from the Vietnam War--the family was notified only after a journalist launched a FOIA request--https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-known-unknown/---all this should, I assume, make it's way into the body of the page as well, at some point. 2602:304:B271:C650:65A4:4338:3660:C1C5 (talk) 20:15, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

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