I have recently read some things that have me confused about the Medal of Honor. As a vet, I know it is punishable as disrespect to refuse to salute a superior officer, or an NCO if (for instance) you are ordered to report to them. I believed it was required for any service member, regardless of rank or branch of service, to salute a Medal of Honor recipient. Is it custom or military law? Does this include civilian leaders that would expect salutes, such as the Defense Secretary and the President? Does this also happen if the Medal recipient is out of uniform? I would think “Yes” to all of the above, but I’ve heard conflicting reports. Please help. Thank you.
Technically you are saluting the medal itself and not the wearer.
Also you seem to be saying that an enlisted person must salute a superior NCO. Not true. The only time I saluted an NCO was in basic training when I was learning to salute.
From Army Live.
When boarding a US Coast Guard cutter, if you’re in uniform, you’re supposed to salute the flag and the Officer of the Deck. And sometimes the Officer of the Deck will be the Petty Officer of the Deck. S/He still gets a salute, regardless of the saluter’s rank.
Some MOH holders may choose to not wear the ribbon because it draws attention to them. Nobody wears large medals unless they’re ordered to wear them. And a MOH holder is unlikely to be court martailed for being Out of Uniform or Absent Without Leave (defined as failure to be in the appointed place at the appointed time in the proper uniform) because he didn’t wear a particular ribbon or large medal he was entitled to wear.
When wearing awards, both medals and ribbons (or ribbon awards and ribbons indicating medals), one is to wear all awards or, if regulation provides, a certain number of the highest awards received. There’s no picking and choosing beyond that. And I’ve never seen any regulation that requires a commissioned officer to salute an enlisted member because the latter has received the Medal of Honor.
My take: Chalk the “salute the medal” as yet anothe military myth or Hollywood treatment of Service life.
Even if there’s no official regulation requiring a salute to a MoH recipient, I suspect that this is one of those matters where tradition speaks louder than law.
I’m not so sure. I think this is more along the lines of ignorance and rumor persisting enough to create a “rule” that never existed. As more people are getting called out on the fact that it is not a rule, it’s being rebranded as a “tradition”. If it was ever a tradition, or is still a tradition, why is there no documentation of this tradition beyond a very recent article stating it matter-of-factly and a brief mention on the website of the Coast Guard Auxillary? I would think that a tradition as important as this would have more evidence.
It’s not a rule or a tradition, and never was.
I’m in the Air Force, so the following information is for Air Force only, i have no idea about other services.
Regarding the MOH, yes, everyone must salute a MOH recipient, per AFI 1-1:
1.6.1.1. You salute the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, Service
Secretaries, all superior commissioned and warrant officers, all Medal of Honor
recipients, and superior officers of friendly foreign nations.
*also, i hate not linking to the official Air Force E-pubs site, but not sure if everyone can access it
As far as other saluting rules, you never, ever, have to salute someone if you are in civilian clothes, or they are in civilian clothes. Saluting indoors is only if officially reporting to an officer (usually for punishment), or receiving an award from an officer.
A cool side-rule of the “don’t have to salute if not in uniform” is if the officer is OUT of uniform, such as forgot to put his/her hat on after leaving a building. Technically, you don’t have to salute, but up to you if you can stand up to the chewing out you might get 
I know of the tradition in the army long before I ever saw it in Hollywood. The wear of Stetsons is not in any regulation either but they certainly exist. My spurs aren’t mythological either. Some things are governed by tradition not regulation.
I don’t know the exact origin but it was an old tradition when I joined in 1989.
Stars and Stripes has a little light to shed:
Yes, there IS a regulation that AF members have to follow regarding saluting Medal of Honor recipients. Please see my above post.
Stars and Stripes is an Army publication. Perhaps the reg you’re quoting is USAF only?
Stars and Stripes is an All-service publication. But anyway, I said above that I can only speak of Air Force instructions. But it is incorrect to say there are no regulations that proscribe saluting a Medal of Honor recipient, because I posted one.
Stars & Stripes is a newspaper, not a regulation.
well, i said Stars and Stripes is a publication. Also, i posted a link to an Air Force instruction that is an official instruction that AF members have to follow.
But Manson actually posted Air Force regs.
It’s also connected to the military.
It’s not really an Army publication. A blog post and other editorial comments on that page is no more official than any other blog on the web.
But either way, manson’s link was to an AFI, which is an Air Force publication and is, as you guessed, Air Force only.
Two things I noticed about that AFI are that is came out very recently, and it was kind of one General’s pet project. manson1972, can you link to any other Air Force document that made saluting MOH recipients a requirement? I would be very interested to learn that it was a written rule in the Air Force for more than the past year.
yeah, they have been kind of consolidating a lot of stuff in the past few years. Hard to find old AFIs from my home computer. But I AM in the AF, and I have been taught to always salute MoH recipients, and the AF is big on regulations 'cause we like to think about why we are doing things 
When i first learned about the rule, it was great because it meant that an officer could theoretically salute an enlisted person, which seemed really cool then.
Here’s what I’m getting at. I think that someone just pulled that out of their ass with they typed up AFI 1-1.
Because it references other Air Force documents “(AFI 34-1201, Protocol; AFPAM 34-1202, Guide to Protocol).”
AFPAM 34-1202, written 6 months after AFI 1-1 has this to say:
8.8.1.1. Salute. There is no law or military regulation requiring personnel of any rank to
salute a Medal of Honor recipient. However, it is permissible to salute a recipient as a
display of respect or honor, whether he or she is civilian or retired military, when he or
she is physically wearing the medal. "
And AFI 34-1201 doesn’t mention the Medal of Honor at all. It only lists the following people as being entitled to a salute: Senior officers, POTUS, vPOTUS, SECDEF, other Secrataries, Other US officers and Officers of friendly nations. Nothing about MoH.
I think that portion of AFI 1-1 was created out of thin air. Yes, it is now the official regulation (even though it doesn’t seem to even be recognized by subsequent Air Force Instruction manuals…) but it didn’t come from previous rules, regulations or protocol.