Based on this picture, I was wondering how those in the armed forces get their medals displayed so evenly. Are medals placed in any particular order?
Yes, there is an order of precedence [seniority] for military medals and/or ribbons:
The ribbons and medals can be mounted on “rails” so that they line up nice and even:
http://www.militaryclothing.com/IBS/SimpleCat/Shelf/ASP/Hierarchy/050T.html
nm, gotta type faster.
There are two ways. The first is to use what’s called a robon backer. It is either a metal strip or a bunch or strips spaced our appropriately that you slide your ribbons onto and pin to your service coat/shirt. The second way is to buy a custom made ‘plate’ that has all the ribbons and devices attached in the right order that you just pin on. You can get them at the on base taylor, I think. For people like those in the picture, the second option is better because it is lighter that the first. And it looks smoother and cleaner.
And there is a definite order. You can find the generic order here, and there are even online sites that will tell you what order to put them in. I know the Air Force has an online site for it’s members that will show them what ribbons and devices they are authorized to wear and in what order.
Minor nit: The first couple of pictures here are “medals”: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=892&bih=532&gbv=2&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=medals+military&oq=medals+military&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=3089l4977l0l5960l9l9l0l4l4l0l327l873l2-1.2l3l0
The things in the OP’s pic are “ribbons”. A “ribbon” is a simplified display device for a corresponding medal.
i.e. when somebody is awarded the “Meritorious Coolitude” medal, they’ll be given both
a “medal” (vertical strip of striped cloth a couple inches long with a safety pin on the back & with a metal medallion bigger than a US 25 cent piece hanging from the bottom)
and also
a “ribbon” (a sample of the same striped cloth but only ~3/8" tall & mounted on a metal backing.)
RIbbons are worn on the moderately fancy uniform as a day-to-day emblem of one’s status; Think “power suit” in civilian dress. Conversely, full-up medals are only worn on ceremonial occasions; think “tuxedo” in civilian dress.
At least in the US, medals also come in two sizes, regular and miniature. Regular have ~1 - 1-1/4" ribbon width and medallions about the size of 50 cent pieces. Mini are more like 3/4" wide ribbon and a medallion larger than a nickel but smaller than a quarter.
The “custom made plate” referred to come from places like this, where you can select your ribbons and they do the rest. The commercial ribbon plate, to me, looks much better than the home-made racks people put together.
Folks here have this topic mostly covered, but some fun trivia here: Those ribbons which have the little gold or silver things pinned on them are ribbons that he received multiple times. The little metal things you pin onto them each represent another award of that decoration.
Is it just me or does that rectangle of ribbons look like it was pasted into the photo? Not even by Photoshop, to me it looks like an MS Paint job.
another fun fact, the devices (little metal thingys on the ribbons denoting multple awards) change as you get more of that particular award
missed the edit window critiquing the display, yes it does. Ribbon overlapping his lapel also looks awfully pink to me(isn’t that the gay AF Ltc?), could be my screen though. When I clicked the picture to enlarge it though it looks mostly ok except that pink ribbon on top of his lapel, that looks faker than fake and throws the whole display out of whack
That corner with the pink ribbon doesn’t seem to push down the lapel it’s on top of, at all: as if it’s floating above it. And the whole thing looks like it’s pointed squarely at the camera whereas the front of his jacket is turned to the right.
I wonder why they would do this?
Yeah, that’s Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach. I used Google Image Search to look for more pictures - and also found an example of the wear-all-the-ribbons level of dress - and it was hard to tell, but it looks like the plate kind of sticks up on the corners or something. Here’s a tiny picture but a different angle and that corner seems to stick above the lapel there too. Maybe it’s something to do with his (rather muscular) build that they can’t really shift the plate further towards the shoulder, lest it really stick up/look weird?
I think that’s just how the angles worked out. As others mentioned, you can get a one-piece ribbon “plate” made that has all the ribbons on it, but as a single solid piece. I haven’t looked at one of those up close, but it could be set up so the whole thing is flat (I’ve seen ribbon racks that were flat, and ones that were curved back towards the ends a bit). Most people, you will find, don’t have perfectly flat torsos, but rather roundish ones. So the light is hitting his ribbons a certain consistent way, while the rest of him is catching the light at different angles.
That’s my theory, anyways. He is sitting with the rack closest to the camera, which could be chance, or it could be the photographer thinks it looks better for him to sit that way.
EDIT: For what it’s worth, the ribbon rack is casting a shadow on his coat if you look closely enough.
The ribbon rack has to line up with his pocket, so if you shifted the plate over to avoid the lapel, it would pretty much look wrong and be wrong. I’ve seen some of the bigger racks (no pun intended) set up so that the higher levels have ribbons taken out of the side closest to the lapel, so as to avoid overlap. I’ve also seen them where the lapel covered part of the top one or two rows. I’ve not earned enough for that to be an issue for me yet.
Thanks for the clarification - yeah, it sounds like he’s simply got enough ribbons to make this an issue in his case.
Here’s a picture of him with a bunch of medals on, for comparison. My wild guess is that there’s a protocol for what medals you bother to pin on when you have that many?
Rule of thumb is “All or Nothing”. If you wear authorized medals and/or ribbons, you wear all of them. Now, what is considered authorized varies from uniform to uniform and service to service (for instance, Airmen can’t currently wear Army decorations that they earn, IIRC)
Leave it to the Air Force to have a regulation tuxedo uniform.
No, but his eyes are following me around the room.
Most western militaries do. If we didn’t have one, we’d look under-dressed.
Not all decorations are medals. Some are just ribbons, such as the Navy’s Sea Service Ribbon. So even though he has a lot of decorations, the number of medals worn could be somewhat less. The ones he’s wearing are miniature medals, which is much easier than trying to mount the full-sized ones.