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Bill Mauldin's sardonic, unshaven Willie once summed up his attitude to the reckless flood of U.S. decorations in World War II. Said Willie: "Just gimme a coupla aspirin. I already got a Purple Heart."

By war's end most front-line troops agreed with Willie. They had their own jeering nicknames for the even cheaper noncombat awards. The Asiatic-Pacific Theater ribbon was the "malaria bar with atabrine clusters"; the pre-Pearl Harbor service medal was the "Lend-Lease cross."

It became an overseas gag that a WAC who had done nothing more than commute to & from the Pentagon could hardly miss at least three awards: the American Theater Campaign Ribbon, the Victory Medal, the Good Conduct Ribbon. Totals ran so high that the wartime U.S. could not afford the metal to strike the medals themselves, issued ribbons instead.

But this week the War Department began to catch up with itself, and made an already ridiculous situation more ridiculous. It began issuing the first medals to match the American Defense Service, Victory and Occupation Ribbons.* Distribution would run into the millions.

* One occupation medal last week went to Washington Newsman Nelson M. Shepard, 29 years late, for service with the Fifth Marines in World War I.

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