Originally Posted by
megan
It's a shame to see your link has US military personnel identifying it as the "Congressional Medal Of Honor", they should know better, its correct term is "Medal Of Honor", nothing Congressional about it, It is presented by the President of the United States, in the name of Congress, which seems to be the source of confusion. You will see no mention of "Congressional" in official US military documentation.
The secretary of the Army, on behalf of the Department of Defense, has testified to Congress that the term "Congressional Medal of Honor" is "incorrect" as a matter of statute, and that "it seems inappropriate to modify the name of the medal with the word 'Congressional' as each award is made in the name of the Congress, through a mandated process in the military chain of command, not 'by' Congress, and there is no other Medal of Honor, so no need for the modifier.
I just dug up the earliest official reference to the Medal of Honor, as signed off by President Abraham Lincoln on 21 Dec 1861. References the award as "Medals of Honor", given they initially approved 200 to be created on their inaugural rollout. Army had theirs signed off a few months later on 12 Jul 1862. Somewhere along the line, decades ago, the colloquial 'Congressional' MOH seems to have morphed into some kind of unofficial formality....but finally appears to have been beaten out of their vernacular
I've got some details on that Royal Jordanian incident, but I'll just brush up on those and post a synopsis.
