THE PENTAGON — President Obama announced today that he would be awarding the Medal of Honor to the U.S. Army for its "great sacrifice and courage in the face of a fiscal disaster," according to an official statement.

This week, the U.S. Army joined many past recipients of the nation's highest award for bravery by jumping on a fiscal grenade, and having its budget blown apart.

A decade of protracted war, tax cuts, and reckless entitlement spending placed the U.S. government on the precipice of a dreaded “fiscal cliff." With lawmakers facing the challenge of cutting $1.2 trillion from the budget over the next ten years, it could have forced Americans to swallow a series of automatic tax increases and cuts to entitlement spending.

This would have forced the average American to make immense sacrifices in order to tackle the nation’s ever-mounting debt. Fortunately, the U.S. Army leapt on the impending fiscal grenade, sparing Americans from the horror of sacrificing for the well-being of the nation.