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As HuffPo's Amanda Terkel explained:

The newly created Distinguished Warfare Medal, approved last month by then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, will honor members of the military for "extraordinary" achievements since Sept. 11, 2001. The accomplishments do not have to be restricted to a geographic region, meaning that remote warfare -- such as drone operations -- could be recognized.

What upset many of the medal's critics was not the creation of the award, but its so-called "order of precedence" that would put it above several traditional combat medals.

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NAVY RECORD

Kyle enlisted in the Navy in February 1999 and was discharged on November 2009, military records show. During that time, he served four tours in Iraq received 14 different awards and decorations, including two Silver Stars, five Bronze Stars with Valor, and two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals.

"I didn't do it for the money or the awards. I did it because I felt like it was something that needed to be done and it was honorable. I loved the guys," Kyle told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2012.

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THE DEVIL

Kyle wrote a best-selling book published in January 2012 detailing his 150-plus kills of Iraqi insurgents from 1999 to 2009. Kyle said in the book that insurgents had put a $20,000 bounty on his head. The website for his security training company said the Iraqis feared him so much they nicknamed him al-Shaitan, or "The Devil."

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LOSS OF A HERO

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As the New York Times noted, "the unemployment rate for veterans of the recent wars has remained stubbornly above that for nonveterans, though it has been falling steadily, dropping to just below 10 percent for all of 2012. That was down from 12.1 percent the year before. The year-end unemployment rate for nonveterans was 7.9 percent in 2012." On any given night roughly 68,000 vets are homeless in the United States, and studies have found that vets on average stay homeless longer than nonvets. Clearly, for many thousands of young men and women returning from the America's protracted Middle East battles, finding security and stability is a struggle.

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There’s just one little problem: The novel doesn’t measure up to the praise.

Indeed, the book is beset by so many deficiencies you’re tempted to wonder what the critics have been smoking. The answer, in the words of one veteran friend, is Martialuana. Let me define the term I've coined: It's a stimulant, known to effect in its user a long-lasting, sometimes undeserved, high about American armed service members and veterans. Prevalent in establishment circles. Often used to assuage guilt for the burden veterans have borne over the last decade.

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Washed-up, draft-dodging '70s rocker Ted Nugent has never tried to obscure his extremism, and this week he offered an idea that is supposedly related to a budget deal. After exposing his impressive ignorance of the federal budget, especially “entitlements," Nugent offered up a modest proposal:

Let's also stop the insanity by suspending the right to vote of any American who is on welfare. Once they get off welfare and are self-sustaining, they get their right to vote restored. No American on welfare should have the right to vote for tax increases on those Americans who are working and paying taxes to support them. That's insane.

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Using national administrative data from the Veteran Administration’s largest supported housing program — the Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUDVASH) program — between January 2008 and April 2011, the study assessed nearly 100 Iraq and Afghanistan vets (who made up just over 2 percent of all the veterans who went through HUDVASH during that time.

The researchers highlighted key findings:

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Lute has post-traumatic stress disorder from the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon. He spent years drifting through jobs, two years in prison for assault, then 15 months sleeping in the bushes outside the police department of this city south of San Diego.

Today, he lives in a $1,235 a month, two-bedroom apartment in a working-class neighborhood. The federal government pays nearly 80 percent of the rent and mostly covers the cost of medicines for his depression, high blood pressure, and other health problems. State-funded programs pay for doctor's appointments for his 6-month-old son and therapy for his wife, who he said is bipolar.

Lute receives a Social Security check and food stamps. A Department of Veterans Affairs case manager communicates with him regularly and helps avert crises, like when Lute's electric bill jumped in an August heat wave and he couldn't afford diapers.

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In California, a long legal case drew to a close as a war memorial cross that had been deemed unconstitutional was being resurrected Sunday in the Mojave desert, capping a landmark case for veterans fighting similar battles on public lands.

Sunday marked the official commemoration of Veterans Day, but the federal holiday will be observed Monday.

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President Barack Obama laid the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington Memorial Cemetery in Virginia and noted that this is the first Veterans Day in a decade with no American troops in Iraq, and that a decade of war in Afghanistan is coming to a close.

In a speech at the Memorial Amphitheater, he said America will never forget the sacrifice made by its veterans and their families.

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One confesses to demons he struggles to control. Another says he's here to find a community. "Forgive me," an Iraq war veteran begins haltingly. "I have to use notes. I have a brain injury."

The students are participants in a veterans writing seminar at George Washington University, where for two days they immerse themselves in the basics of the craft and learn how to plumb for therapeutic and creative purposes their experiences in places like Iraq, Bosnia and Vietnam. The class is a non-credit weekend seminar open to veterans and their relatives, but the university plans to soon adapt the model into a for-credit semester-long course for student veterans.

The seminar is part of a trend of veterans-only courses offered at colleges and universities, part of a concerted effort to cater to a population that tends to be older, more experienced and farther removed from the classroom than traditional undergraduates.

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The bill, a major part of President Obama's legislative agenda, would have used $1 billion over five years to help military veterans find jobs, potentially helping 20,000 people. Yesterday, Republicans in Congress blocked the bill, which did not get the filibuster-proof magic number of 60 votes. It went down 58-40, with five Republicans voting in favor of it.

Republicans argued that the bill is not paid for, but Democrats said it would be paid for in part by Medicare providers who are slapped with delinquency fees for their taxes.

Coburn, appearing on "Morning Joe," argued that there are "six veterans jobs programs now, and nobody knows if they're working."

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I met my European spouse on a fully financed study trip in 2004, when I was the oldest student participant, at 27 years old, and we had a rock 'n' roll fairy-tale courtship. I had never traveled outside of the U.S. before, but had met the guitarist of the band that my now-husband was the sound engineer for at a SXSW party in Austin, Texas. My future husband and I had a wild one-night stand in the attic of a London party. We never thought that the romance would culminate in a long-term partnership, but due to my winning a few study-abroad fellowships (in 2004-2005) and his joining bands for U.S. tours we were able to maintain our relationship for a couple of years until I finally won a scholarship to study in his home country in 2007. We were married in 2008.

Before we lived together, he had warned me that he had dark moments and did not expect to live past 36 (he is now 41). I identified with him all the more when he said this, as I have suffered from depression on and off as long as I can remember. Somehow, at first, I didn't connect these admissions of his with his experience as a soldier in the former Yugoslavia in 1995.

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What was your first reaction when you heard Walsh's comments?

Unfortunately, I was not surprised at all. This is typical of the type of things that he says. We didn’t responds the first two times. And this time, we didn’t respond at first either, but then I just felt like we had to because I think he’s undermining a lot of veterans out there. There are 23 million veterans in this country, and they should not be criticized for talking about their military service.

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In about a day, I would be at the exact place where the plane went down, by the sides of dozens of troops who were injured in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I was chronicling a solemn moment on the 10thanniversary of the 9/11 attacks for “Recovering,” the documentary film I’m directing about troops who have turned to an unlikely recreation, bicycling, to heal from wounds such as post-traumatic stress disorder and lost limbs.

But Shanksville was far away. It was raining and cold and I kept pedaling. I was wet, breathing hard, my ass hurt and heart felt like it could burst. I wanted to stop. But that was out of the question. I wasn’t going to let the other cyclists down.

I looked down at the Garmin mileage tracker on the handlebars of my road cycle. It read: “790.”

In just 121 miles, it would hit “911.” Then the champagne would flow.

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