criticism inside ukraine, from the cabinet of the ukranian government, about why this is happening. i mean, cabinet ministers have said this is, first of all, inappropriate, making female soldiers parade in these heels. they are saying that it doesn t reflect their combat status. remember, russia ukraine, sorry, is a country at war with. and there are 57,000 female troops fighting in that conflict. and also there has been a health issue raised. marching in shoes like that is not good for you obviously. and so there is that. the defense ministry has initially it said look, other armies in the world, they issue heels to female soldiers in dress uniforms, but it is also pointed out that they don t normally expect their soldiers to march in those shoes. so now the defense ministry in
investigation. but she clearly performed her duty exceptionally well, but there s others. there were folks inside some of these buildings who performed very heroic personal acts in saving others. there s at least one chaplain that i m aware of that shielded and saved other soldiers, broke some windows, got them to safety. i think the performance of the medical staff, the initial performance of the medical start at darnell was exceptional, and i have seen a lot of medical staff perform in combat, and the performance at darnell and the performance at scott and white, rose to the level of combat status. and, yes, he did fire a weapon. [inaudible question] we have all the command information throughout the
we are not here today for us. we are here today for those soldiers to get back combat status. get the combat benefits, the medical help that they need. that s why we re here today. but let s be ready. let s do our homework. let s look out for each other. let s look both ways before crossing. let s remember what s important. let s be optimistic. but just in case let s be ready. let go places, safely.
they want these victims to be treated with the same sort of combat status as those men and women who were here in the pentagon, who were hurt and wounded when the terrorists attacked on september 11. it s a small pin, but the fight to award it has big implications for how the u.s. defines an act of terrorism. as we ve seen anything is possible. we are at war. reporter: some in congress want to award the purple heart to victims of the fort hood shooting of 2009. the wounded soldiers and the 12 troops killed, including a teenage private and a pregnant soldier heading home for maternity leave. the pentagon is pushing back. what is the rationale for opposing this legislation? we re simply saying that our position has not changed. this is a matter that is pending before a court. i m not going to get into it. reporter: cnn obtained the pentagon position paper which does. in it officials argue awarding
korea. but it s as i said, it s conditional on a provication. that is not defined. it can be said that while there is probably no one left alive or very few who remember the b-52 strikes back during the korean war, some of those aging generals that we always see around kim, they, too, remember the carpet bombing that was carried out by b-52 rz. this is a very strong signal from the u.s. that says think again. erin? all right. thank you very much, jim, for that tonight live from seoul. outfront tonight, pentagon press secretary george little. good to talk to you, george. this week north korea s military put the strategic rockets on combat status. they say they re ready to attack all military bases and they talked of a simmering nuclear war. you know, your boss the defense secretary said today that, you