Heavy Medals

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  Posted By: Soda @ 06/24/2009 12:09:30 PM

  As an officer in the US Navy, here are some of my personal thoughts of why we have had an exponential growth in military awards since WWII:
  
  1) More campaigns = more campaign medals. This comes up especially for Navy and USMC who can participate in Kosovo and OSW, or now, OIF & OEF in one cruise. The US was more isolationist in previous centuries.
  
  2) All-Volunteer force creates a stronger careerist mentality, which leads to people expecting awards for remembering to breath, just so their career is not damaged if they don't get an award.
  
  3) Inflation. If everyone starts getting medals, distinguishing who legitimately did an award-worthy event or tour of duty either risks raising the mean award level or it gets lost among everyone else's medals.
  
  I still think that awards are appropriate on non-combat tours, but it should be for the top 10%, not the top 90% of performers. However, it becomes tough to take the recognition away once it is given.

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  Posted By: johnsonjw @ 06/23/2009 7:56:56 AM

  Five years ago, it was my honor to be among the hundreds of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines called upon to provide support for the 60th anniversary of D Day, providing life support, facilitating transportation and protecting the force. On the day of the big ceremony, I was in my Army green uniform (???class As???) and I was extremely self-conscious of my rows and rows of individual awards, medals, service medals and service ribbons while most of the Normandy veterans (the ones who still fit their uniforms) had no (or damn few) awards or medals. At the time, I had ???earned??? 19 of them in my 16 years of service. Even though, I had experienced a great deal and not missed many actions, I felt insignificant in their presence.
  
  Our current awards system is broken, but if you don't hand one out to every Soldier who leaves your unit, you will put your Soldiers at a disadvantage (for promotion, choice assignments, choice schools, etc.) . Your exceptional Soldier (or just plain old good Soldier) without a departure award will be valued less than a sub-standard Soldier whose command was too lazy to take corrective action and awarded the Soldier a departure award to boot.
  
  The only good thing I can think of is that our ribbon racks are like resumes. Soldiers can look at each other's uniforms and know exactly where that Soldier has been and what they've accomplished in the military. But don't confuse all those pretty-colored ribbons as a measure of a Soldier's courage or honor.
  
  You are correct, wstephenjackson. Most of those ribbons are service medals and service ribbons, denoting particiaption in specific campaigns. While GEN Craddock and ADM Mullen have some pretty high individual awards (both from DoD and each's respective service), most of their fruit salad is "places I've been" awards. GEN Eisenhower's highest award appears to be an Army Distinguished Service Medal. Fleet ADM Nimitz's highest appears to be the Navy Cross but, curiously enough, it's on the bottom of that stack, indicating it's the lowest award. There is only one award between the Navy Cross and the Medal of Honor. The one on top of his stack appears to be the Navy Distinguished Service Medal (3 away from the MOH). Perhaps Newsweek didn't get the order of precedence right or their colors are off.

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  Posted By: otto of ledyard @ 06/21/2009 8:45:24 PM

  One of the things I laugh at every time I hear it is the media calling almost anyone in the military ???highly decorated.??? While there are certainly those who qualify, many medals and ribbons are ???earned??? simply because the person was alive and breathing at a certain period of time or attached to a certain command. Many medals are thought to be only earnable for a certain rank and the chances of a lower ranked person getting that higher medal are slim. I don???t know how many times in my 22 years of Naval service did I hear a more senior person deny the junior person a medal simply because ???I didn???t get that when I was younger??? or ???that is the same medal I would get.??? In reality, medals and ribbons do nothing but boost the morale of the people wearing them. They are not really a measure of the person???s performance.