I’m going through some of my father’s things. Among them, a photo from 8 Sep 1952 of him receiving some medals aboard the USS Boxer (he was a fighter pilot in the Korean War, aboard the Boxer, Valley Forge, and Philippine Sea). The note on the back says:
All I can clearly make out in the photo is the Naval Commendation Medal, but the CO is clearly still in the act of pinning things on my dad, so I don’t know if more was attached after the photo was snapped. And trying to decipher the minutiae of Bronze Service Stars, Bronze Campaign Stars, Bronze Star Medals, and “V’s” is making my head spin.
Any sailors or flyboys here that can help me clear things up?
And just to let you know how arcane this can get for even junior sailors, this is my rack:
Navy Achievement Medal with 2 gold stars.
Joint Meritorious Unit Award - this ribbon is mounted inside of a brass frame.
Navy Unit Commendation
Navy “E” Ribbon (Battle E)
Good Conduct Medal
National Defense Service Medal
Armed Forces Service Medal
Navy Sea Service Deployment Ribbon
Navy and Marine Corps Overseas Service Ribbon with bronze star
NATO Medal
All of these were accumulated at two permanent duty stations, one temporary posting to a staff position for a deployment, and five years of active duty. I made it to E-5 in rank.
If I were in the Air Force, I likely would have advanced more slowly and racked up more fruit salad.
Can someone explain how the Air Medals work? Why do you receive multiple ones, for WHAT do you receive them, specifically, and what’s with all the substitution I see on people’s descriptions online (i.e., __ star received in lieu of __th air medal)?
It used to be (WWII-era) that you qualified for the Air Medal after some number of combat missions, and once you had it, you got a further oak leaf cluster for completing every X many more missions afterwards. My grandfather had the Air Medal with 4-5 oak leaf clusters, if I recall.
Nowadays, I don’t think it’s given out quite so easily as back then.
It still is, and within the limitations set down by the MAJCOM, they still are.
I have an Air Medal with an Oak Leaf Cluster, and I will likely get many more repeats of this award. One of my Senior Master Sergeants has 17 Air Medals, if I recall correctly. That may seem to devalue the award, but if you keep in mind that one must fly 10 or so combat missions per award, it doesn’t seem so insignificant anymore.
Actually, they tightened it up in the Fifties from what I can see and then reinstated strike/flight Air Medals for Vietnam and subsequent wars.
Your dad got these medals when they were really hard to get, and represented discrete acts of valor or achievement in the air, but less valorous than would merit a Distinguished Flying Cross.
As for the stars in general, it is common to be granted numerous awards over a career - my three Navy Achievement Medals were for different things. One was an end-of-tour award from my tour in Sicily, one was for performing well in a temporary staff assignment during a UNITAS cruise around South America, and one was for extensive Tomahawk cruise missile component testing.
Since wearing multiple copies of the same medal would junk up the uniform considerably - especially considering that there is a ranking of medals that has to be observed - in the military you will only wear one copy of the medal or ribbon at a time, and subsequent awards of a medal, ribbon or award are denoted by stars or clusters.
Just curious if Mr. Moto or Airman Doors would know- is there a record for the number of medals and ribbons that an individual serviceman has earned? There was a Boy Scout that earned every merit badge, has there been a serviceman to earn all the medals?
Ah. Thanks for all that, folks. Some other (non-awards-related) minutiae:
I’m going through his flight log books. I’ve learned what most of the acronyms/notations mean (CAP, CAS, CAT SHOT, NGF, STRIKE), but I see on May 17, 1952 the note “Package #3.” Any idea what this could mean? (There is no “Package #1” or “Package #2”.)
That’s quite impossible - these awards include campaign awards, and you wouldn’t expect a WWI vet to earn a campaign medal for Iraq.
Plus, my Good Conduct Medal is only given to enlisted personnel, not officers. Some medals are also service specific - it would be quite hard for an Air Force pilot to earn the Navy Cross.
That said, the record holder is usually considered to be Col. George “Bud” Day. He has over seventy awards, most of them combat related. These include the Medal of Honor, Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star (4), Purple Heart, and Air Medal (10). He was a POW in Vietnam for more than five years.
How are they physically attached? Pinning individual medals so they line up perfectly with no gaps between seems impossible. So are they mounted to a board of some type which then is pinned to the shirt? And in terms of precedence, are the best medals at the bottom row or the top row?
Operation PACKAGE was a rail-interdiction operation in the Korean War using carrier-based aircraft. That is a possibility.
The ribbons or medals are slid onto rails on a mounting rack, with pins located on the back for attachment to the uniform. The folks at the PX or NEX sell all of this stuff. If you get a new medal, you have to get a new thirty-cent ribbon and a new five-dollar rack to attach it to - they’re sized to the number of ribbons you have.
Best medals are on top, and run down and left to right.
The stars and other devices simply poke through the fabric of the ribbon for attachment.
These come in different lengths, and can come with multiple rows. Medals and ribbons have a regulation width to them, so the bar should be hidden from view. These mounting bars have pins pointing backward that are inserted through the shirt, with little pinch clamps to hold the bar (with the ribbons/medals) in place. Some are magnetic, although I would never feel confident about their ability to stay put.
It is common in an environment where more casual uniforms are worn (Navy khakis, or service uniforms, for instance) to wear only the “top three” ribbons so as to not have the ribbon rack get in the way too much.
Apparantly the Navy and Air Force do not concern themselves with the career of Major Audie Murphy. They wouldn’t want to have to admit that a US Army Officer is the highest decorated veteran in American History.
Then there’s LTC Matt Urban (Also US Army), who exceeded Murphy in the number of awards, but did not receive the DSC–2nd only to the Medal of Honor. Murphy receive the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross. Also, LTC Urban belatedly received his Medal of Honor 40 years after the war.
I don’t know. With some of these guys it gets awfully hard to tally all of this - and how do you count certain things? Chesty Puller had five Navy Crosses and a Distinguished Service Cross but no Medal of Honor - does he rank somehow lower? Keep in mind not many people get the second highest award for bravery - he got six of them.
