Editing Humanitarian Service Medal (section)

==Creation==
[[Julia V. Taft]], the director of the Interagency Task Force (IATF) for Indochinese resettlement proposed the establishment of a Humanitarian Service Medal for U.S. military personnel and submitted the request to President [[Gerald R. Ford]] on November 10, 1975. The medal was to be awarded to those personnel that participated in the evacuation of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees after the [[Vietnam War]]. The proposal was met with dissent by Army Lieutenant General [[Harold G. Moore]], who was concerned that the military was over-decorating its personnel with awards of participation rather than those of extraordinary achievement. He proposed a certificate of achievement as a more appropriate recognition. Army Lieutenant General [[John W. Vessey]] supported the creation of the medal as a precedent to recognize military participation in major humanitarian actions. Vessey's view prevailed and President Ford established the medal in 1977 as one of the last acts of his presidency.<ref name="Lipman">{{cite journal|last1=Lipman|first1=Jana K.|title="A Presedent Worth Setting..." Military Humanitarianism: The U.S. Military and the 1975 Vietnamese Evacuation|journal=The Journal of Military History|date=January 2015|volume=79|issue=1|pages=151–152}}</ref>