I remember officers who absolutely knew what you were wearing. I had a Marine colonel take me to task for having the USMC ‘globe & anchor’ pin on my Vietnam Service ribbon. He was pretty aggressive about it until I told him I was a Seabee and had served on a Marine base in I Corps. I also remember someone (who was too young to be wearing it) sporting a Korean Campaign ribbon. I asked him WTF, and he sheepishly admitted to just buying random ribbons for his uniform. Told him to get rid of them immediately or face some consequences.
I agree with the comment that really the only ones that “matter” are generally the first couple of rows. I think I ended up with 13 total. They have personal meaning to me, and even many of the lower ranked ones have stories behind them.
In the Army, “maybe”. At least during promotion boards, enlisted service members present themselves in front of a board of NCOs, along with their personnel records, wearing the class A uniform, with all their awards and decorations. He or she is then asked a series of questions about military regulations, history, current events, and how they would handle certain leadership situations. They receive a score based upon their performance, but also their appearance. It has a direct impact on whether they are recommended for promotion. They will look at the awards displayed on the uniform for proper placement, and that all the awards that are listed in their records are displayed. Technically if it’s not listed in their official records they are not authorized to wear it. But by the same token, if they have an award, they are supposed to wear it.
One time there was a “Soldier of The Month” competition where junior enlisted compete in promotion board-like contests, to gain confidence in appearing before promotion boards. Two soldiers were in an apparent dead-heat, and the board members were unsure what to do. Finally in desperation, a senior NCO asked both of them "Are you wearing Army issue skivvies, or whitie tighties? Busted! One guy wasn’t wearing OD drab underoos. The actual placement of the awards and decorations is a bit of a PITA, as they need to be level when worn, and a prescribed distance between the pocket etc. There are plastic templates that can be used to help with this, but the more gee-gaws ya have, the more trouble it is.
It might just be a matter of uniformity. If you’re going to give medals to the badasses, then there needs to be a place on the uniform to put medals. And if you’re going to have a place on the uniform to put medals, then what do the non-badasses put there? Things like the Army Service Ribbon, then, can serve as a sort of placeholder until and unless you earn something better.
Given that, why do you keep on wearing the Army Service Ribbon when you’ve got a silver star and a couple of purple hearts? That’s just down to tradition, and the tradition in different militaries is different, as you note.
My father had 4 rows when he retired after 36 years of service, plus a few badges. I asked him which ones he was proud of the most. The order was
Campaign Medals.
Some of the professional qualification badges
The long service 10, 20, 30-year ribbons
The gallantry awards
Everything else.
Gallantry awards often have an aspect of political pressure behind them, and FME many military men tend to be less overawed by them than civilians.
Dick Winter’s (of Band of Brother’s fame) was recommended for the Medal of Honor, he got a DSC; since there was an unofficial rule of one MoH per division per battle.
Col H Jones of 2 PARA got the VC during the Falklands since the MoD wanted to recognize the services of 2 PARA as a whole, and he was the CO, many peeple thought his actions, though brave, were reckless.
No one has ever managed to explain to me why McArthur got the Medal of Honor for getting his ass kicked in 1942.
OK, to throw this in the mix (literally and figuratively):
Some ribbons are ribbons only?
All medals have ribbons?
When one, when the other? Can you mix and match (like highlighting in a resume…). I mean, I’d wear the MoH as a tiara if I was told full-dress.
If the decorations are all “double duty,” there are occasions when medals are considered de trop?
I think of it (and perhaps others do too) when I see a news report of a random elderly Soviet Union vet, who often is wearing 20 lbs worth of medals, and our guys, in service or vet, are far less glinty.
I’m sure the US rules on this query are spelled out in detail, on some website or other. But as usual I’m interested in the feel of the communication among soldiers.
Most all medals have ribbons associated with them, but may not come with them and must be purchased separately. There are a few ribbons without an associated medal, such as the Navy Combat Action Ribbon (CAR). Medals are worn with a class A dress uniform. Ribbons are worn with other uniforms. Neither is worn with utility uniforms. There are also miniature medals, which I believe are only worn with dinner dress uniforms.
Every style of uniform specifies how awards are to be worn. For the vast majority, it’s ribbons only. If, for some reason, you’re wearing actual medals, then you’ll be wearing medals for all of them, except for the ones that don’t have medals.
Hell, married to a career Submariner, and while I know which 3 boats he was on [and alternating which shore duties] I couldn’t tell you whether he did the San Juan before or after the Miami [hey, they are all long black cylinders when they are sitting at the pier. And they were both in Groton, it was the Spadefish in Norfolk.] Just like I knew my Dad was in for 30 years, the only posting I can say for certain was 13th Armored from start to the end of WW2, mainly because his unit ‘yearbook’ was in the library at home, and there was assorted memorabilia floating around the house [and the P.08, Sauer 38H and his original issue M1 are in my possession] I know he was in Japan during the Korean ‘police action’ and in Saigon in Vietnam, and did something at Drum and Huachuca at various times. In my defense, he retired when I was all of 8 years old, and the last 3 years [while he was in Vietnam] we were living in western NY … I challenge most anybody to fill out 30 years of their fathers life predating 8 years old. He like many vets of his age range simply were not into telling ‘war stories’ to kids. [other than some funny stuff like getting a medal for saving his own ass by diving into a trench and knocking a few officers into it while he was diving in, thusly ‘saving’ some officers… he would have hit the trench through anybody, he just wanted out of being shot at by snipers…he wasn’t trying to save anybody else.] On the odd side, I found a set of mid 1940s class A of his that he had apparently left at my grandparents house from when he was still an enlisted before going officer. Still haven’t popped the footlocker in the attic yet so I am not certain what all is there [though I am using one of his Bronze Stars as a wall decoration in my bedroom, I found it in the desk when I was rummaging around for stamps. Good for when I am wishing he were still around.]
For both above - I have a pic of mrAru in dress blues, with both medals and ribbons, the more ‘formal’ version of dress. He could also dress it down and wear just a ribbon bar, the more common way to wear it. [the most formal is the military tux, as if dress blues/dress whites aren’t bad enough!] But then again, over 20 years his seabag contained at various times dress whites, dress blues, working whites, working blues, underway overalls, dungarees and ACUs. We still have a bin of assorted medals [mini and full sized] ribbons, little dinguses to stick into ribbons and assorted doohickies to hold the damned ribbons, and dolphins [at least one silver and one pewter mini, and pewter large] and a passel of the little pin backs - at least a couple dozen of the blasted things. I swear militaria is as invidious as glitter. I can iron and sew patches on pretty much anything from the past 30 years at a pinch [I used to make some bucks on the side before inspections tailoring and doing patches for the guys, I worked faster and was cheaper than the base dry cleaners.]
An anecdote: I was in the city of Stratford Ontario, and walked by an art restoration storefront: it featured a painting of a military man who fought in WW1. The painting depicted an officer in full dress uniform.
The painting had been deliberately mutilated with a knife - someone had cut out the part of the uniform containing the medals. The associated card stated that the painting had probably been attacked by a serviceman who had fought in WW1 because the medals were wrong - allegedly it was a posthumous painting, and the artist had simply copied a bunch of medals and ribbons he or she had seen elsewhere!
Yes, military jewelry can get quite complicated if you’ve been in a long time and/or qualified for a lot of stuff and/or had a lot of… adventures (There I was…). I personally had three decorations, the NDM I wrote of above, a Good Conduct Medal, and an Expert Pistol Marksman Medal. The last was absolutely bottom in order of precedence but was the one I was proudest of because I’d dome something to earn it.
I read a book by Harold Coyle, the Team Yankee guy, with a scene where an army major and a captain were standing in a parking lot having a conversation. There was the ever-so-quiet tick of a pin back hitting the ground and they both broke off the convo and started patting their various bits and bobs, trying to determine which had come loose. Since Coyle is an ex-tanker I had no doubt this was based on something that had happend to him.
“CPO?”
