I’m posting this for a guy I work with. He and his fiancee would like to create a shadow box for her grandfather who served in the US Army during WWII. What I know is that he served in the European Theater, 36th Infantry Division.
Here are the pictures. Apologies for the quality - I’m at work and my camera choice is limited:
If you know someone in the military, they can obtain the ribbons and medals (and the box itself) required for a shadowbox. All of those are sold by the military Exchange stores (here). One thing to remember about the awards is that if one’s wearing the medal, one doesn’t wear the ribbon for that metal on one’s ribbon bar.
Another note: a lot of people, at least in my experience, like to have the insignia for each rank they’ve held included in the shadow box.
From this page, which includes some of the WWII ribbons that the other reference does not, I get the following order of precedence:
Top rack from IMG23
Purple Heart
Good Conduct Medal
Europe/Africa/Middle East Ribbon (WWII)
Middle rack from IMG23 (I think you have this one upside-down)
POW Medal
WWII Victory Medal
???
Bottom rack from IMG23
Good Conduct Medal
American Campaign Ribbon (WWII)
Europe/Africa/Middle Easy Ribbon (WWII) with four oak-leaf clusters (or stars) denoting five (!) tours
The third ribbon on the second rack is tough to figure out because so few medals or ribbons have that distribution of one big blob with very little at the ends; most of them are very high-ranking awards. And yet, the POW medal out-ranks the WWII victory medal, which means that the third ribbon is either a campaign ribbon, or its equivalent… or that it’s been grossly misplaced.
Can you tell us what color the left-most ribbon is on the second rack, in CIMG0023.JPG?
The Mystery Award could be the Army of Occupation Medal, if the single blob of color in the center is actually two blobs (one black, one red). That would also tell us if they were in the right order. Makes sense that someone could be captured, released on V-E Day, and then serve honorably in Germany during the occupation.
The first rack has several stars for the Europe/Africa/ME campaign ribbon, too. Count the stars and add one to determine how many tours he did.
The left most ribbon, center rack of img 23 is the Purple Heart, it’s just covered with some type of tape or coating making it very dark.
I should have mentioned that we knew about half of them, and knew some were duplicates; I just wanted to make sure and get any additional input from the esteemed readership of these boards. He’s still working out the details as to why the separate bars. Oddly enough, one of the ribbons we didn’t know was the Europe/Africa/Middle East Ribbon (WWII). As it turns out, this article was in todays newspaper: http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/coast/051107dday.shtml
Nice coincidence.
Again - many thanks. A follow up question on the US Army uniform. What would have been the insignia on the lower collar(?) of the dress uniform? Not the collar where it says “U.S.”, but below that. FWIW - he was a Sergeant.
Jurph, I think you’re spot on with all the ribbons, except the POW. (First link, middle rack, right side). The guy who’s doing this, however, thinks he found it. It looks to be the WWI Occupation of Germany Medal. That’s WWI, not II. :eek:
Huh. That’s odd. I did find this regarding the criteria for such an award:
I’m told there’s no way this gentleman is old enough to meet the date criteria, so I wonder what the deal is? It’s pretty clear to me that this is the medal we’re looking at here - it matches exactly. Perhaps he has the wrong occupation medal?
…or maybe instead of the WWII variant, his father or grandfather (who had done something similar in WWI) gave him “my old ribbon for the same job”? I can also see him
The several racks could be from different timelines and/or for different uniforms. For example, I only wear my medals (not my ribbons) on my mess dress, and so I have a subset of my decorations. But every time I get a new decoration, I have to buy new racks, and taking the ribbons off basically destroys them. So at home, I have six or seven racks of decorations, each reflecting a different snapshot in time of what I had earned. Modern racks are unique for each number of decorations, but it’s possible that WWII racks came in 1, 2, and 3-ribbon sizes and you were to mix and match as appropriate (stacks of 3 with the remainder centered on top). If that’s the case, the same person could have been wearing the top rack, and then later been wearing the bottom rack (with a purple heart centered above).
I can’t figure out exactly how that mix-and-match would work. You’re certain that all three racks belonged to the same person?
That’s what I’m told. The guy in my office who’s doing this is probably going to see his fiancee’s grandfather tonight, and will ask about that ribbon, and why the racks are arranged the way they are.
IIRC, Enlisted personnel wore a U.S. insignia on the right collar and the branch insignia on the left, both insignia being backed with a metal disk. This was for dress uniforms.
