New Medal for Civilian Casualties

More than two centuries after George Washington awarded the first Purple Hearts to veterans of the American Revolution, the Pentagon has created an equivalent medal for civilian employees killed or wounded in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Medal for the Defense of Freedom was unveiled Thursday by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who called it “a recognition that the world has changed, that we can no longer count on future wars being waged safely in their regions of origin.”

The new medal will be awarded to all civilian Defense Department employees who were killed or wounded in the suicide hijackings of four jetliners.

All military personnel who were casualties of the attacks will receive the Purple Heart.

“Those Department of Defense employees who were injured or killed were not just victims of terror,” Rumsfeld said during a Pentagon briefing. “They were combat casualties, brave men and women who risked their lives to safeguard our freedom. And they paid for our liberty with their lives.”

The hijacked airliner that plowed into the west face of the Pentagon killed 56 military personnel and 69 civilians inside the building. Pentagon officials said they did not know how many military or civilian defense employees were inside the World Trade Center towers in New York or in the four aircraft commandeered by terrorists.

The fourth plane crashed in an uninhabited area of Pennsylvania.

More than 6,000 people are listed as dead or missing.

Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Abell said the first medals would be presented at ceremonies next month.

Rumsfeld noted that the near-simultaneous hijackings were the first military attacks on American soil since World War II, and the first on the nation’s capital by a foreign enemy since the War of 1812.