Lawmakers: Victims of Domestic Terrorism Deserve Purple Heart

Top lawmakers on Capitol Hill are challenging the U.S. military to rethink how it classifies terrorist attacks on U.S. soil after the Defense Department decided the 2009 attack at Fort Hood and the attack on a recruiting office in Arkansas were domestic killings rather than flash points in the global war on terrorism.

Those classifications mean the dozens who were wounded or killed at Fort Hood, Texas, and those killed or injured in Little Rock, Ark., were not eligible for Purple Heart medals — a ruling that House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter T. King and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman want to change.

They have introduced legislation that would allow domestic attacks on service members to be reviewed the same way as international terrorist attacks when it comes to awarding the Purple Heart, which is the military’s decoration for troops wounded or killed while in combat zones.

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