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This talk about medals prompts me to insert a question about medals in general. I'm a (disabled) Vietnam combat vet. I have a few medals from my service -- but really just a few. What's up with the chest-fulls of ribbons I see on today's service personnel? I'm talking about people who clearly aren't combatants. I'm not a 'combat snob'. Everybody's got a job to do and they're all part of the mix. Combat line troops don't do what they do without critical support from those "in the rear with the gear". But just what is the point / mentality behind 4 rows of ribbons for a Coast Guard Yeoman with about 6 or 7 years in service?
This talk about medals prompts me to insert a question about medals in general. I'm a (disabled) Vietnam combat vet. I have a few medals from my service -- but really just a few. What's up with the chest-fulls of ribbons I see on today's service personnel? I'm talking about people who clearly aren't combatants. I'm not a 'combat snob'. Everybody's got a job to do and they're all part of the mix. Combat line troops don't do what they do without critical support from those "in the rear with the gear". But just what is the point / mentality behind 4 rows of ribbons for a Coast Guard Yeoman with about 6 or 7 years in service?
Just look at the campaign medals....heck, If I'm not mistaken, you get 3 just to join, National Defense service medal, the "welcome to the military medal, and I think there is 1 more....you get after basic....
People are throwing medals around like crazy....oh, you made it to formation, well here is an AAM.....yes that's a little sarcastic....but not by much.....
The amount of medals given away, even while I was in was amazing....
I've always thought the army tossed ribbons around like crazy. Not to mention You can wear three pins many are not earn so to speak l(for what I understand). I recall asking a solider how long did it take take him to earn his Pin and he looked perplex and stated he receive the pin as he got to his unit. Then you have the scroll and tabs which through me off years ago. Marine Corps doesn't possess all that jazz. I must admit it can look very distinguished.
Some of this is mostly where you serve. Some places you can serve for years and you can expect little. At other places they get 4-5 ribbons and 2-3 medals each month.
At my last command where I retired, I was in a dress formation for some ceremony. After 20 years of Active Duty I wore 2 medals and 2 1/2 rows of ribbons. One sailor working for me had six rows of medals and ten rows of ribbons after 8 years of active duty.
He had been an aircrew member of a P3 Orion. Keeping reserve officers up to date with enough air-time to be fully qualified means that they have to spend a lot of time in the air, simply counting hours. So they list all world-wide operations, and file a flight plan to include as many as they can reach for each pilot. A touch-and-go on a air-field during an 'operation' qualifies everyone on the plane for any medal that later gets issued.
Fly to Europe and do 2 or 3 touch-and-goes, then to Africa to do another, then to Turkey, then to a few places in the Far East, before returning stateside. Gets the pilot enough flight hours logged that he remains qualified for another month. And it gets the entire air-crew all medals for every operation that happens that month.
Medals have morphed into a graphical display of a person's military record on their shirt. With a quick glance I can tell or estimate:
# of campaigns they've been in.
# of overseas tours/sea service.
# of PCS/PCA moves they've had and whether their leadership through they were above average, average, or below average troops (Distinguished Service/Commendation/Achievement Medals)
Any "special" assignments (Humanitarian, Recruiter, Homeland Security...)
All of the above are fairly routine.
Then there's the no-kidding, real combat/valor medals. This includes the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Silver/Bronze Star with V, Purple Heart, POW Medal, Combat Action Medal/Ribbon/Badge, Presidential Unit Citation, Air Medal.
Learning how to "decode" today's awards is an acquired skill. For guys who earned their medals during WWII/Korea/Vietnam, it can definitely appear like today's military members are over-decorated.
I rememebr seeing a certain medal listed on people's resumes. I noticed that it stopped being listed for yournger service memebrs and now its back on just about everyone's resume. So I spoke to a collegue who was a long time serviceman who retire after I think 30 years. I asked him what that medal was for and he said "Don;t get court-martial, get a medal". To this day i still have a hard time figuring that one out...
If you are on a Naval vessel in the area where something happened that was medal-worthy you get that medal.
For instance, my buddy in the USMC was on a 6 month deployment on a ship and he got 6 or 7 medals just for being in a certain area. Meanwhile, I was stateside for my whole 4 years and the only one I got was a Good Cookie.
To me, it's a little funny that you think servicemembers today have a chest full of ribbons. Back when I did Seps TAD, I dreaded doing paperwork for the Vietnam-era guys because they usually had tons of awards and medals. It seemed to me that they got more than in those days (93-97).
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