Speaking of Purple Hearts...

...while some Republican hatchetmen seem to think so little of them that they see them as suitable campaign fodder, the Bush administration apparently thinks it's an award that more American troops should get a chance to earn.

Like the troopers of Bravo Company, for instance...

Bolding and the others of Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division, would have been home unscathed had their mission ended as scheduled in early April. The company had not sustained a single combat injury before then. Now they've got more than two dozen Purple Hearts they'd rather not have. One soldier is dead, another blinded, and several face long hospitalizations, mostly from mortar attacks and a car bombing.

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Adding to the shock of lives disrupted was an unexpected death toll throughout the 1st Armored. Of the division's more than 90 combat deaths, 19 have occurred in the past two months, when the soldiers expected to be home.

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Members of Bravo Company, whose insignia is the Grim Reaper, arrived in Kuwait on May 1, 2003, just as President Bush declared major combat operations over.

19 men died because the President's "superb" Secretary of Defense supported an inadequate war plan with an inadequate force.

Perhaps you haven't signed the petition. Certainly you should.