Securing America: New Military Medal

There’s a new honor for a new age of warfare.  That’s the thinking behind a new medal authorized by outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

FOX News Radio’s Rich Johnson reports from Washington in our ongoing series on national security:

Securing America.

A drone piloted by someone half a world away.  A computer expert defending against cyber attack and counterattacking.  Many of today’s warriors are nowhere near a battlefield, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says that’s what the new Distinguished Warfare Medal will recognize.

(Sec. Panetta) “The extraordinary achievements that directly impact on combat operations, but that do not involve acts of valor or physical risk that combat entails.”

The new blue, red and white-ribboned Distinguished Warfare Medal will be retroactive, covering military operations since September 11, 2001.  It’s the first new military medal since the Bronze Star was created in 1944.

In Washington, Rich Johnson, FOX News Radio.