Do combat arms soldiers look down on fellow combat arms brethren if they have deployed and not been awarded a combat badge/medal/ribbon?

NOT EVERYONE WANT or CAN BE A HERO!
Just to be able, ready, and willing to take a bullet for / with your fellow soldiers is enough for me!

What about those veterans that served between wars? WW II and Korea, Korea and Vietnam, Vietnam and Iraq? No combat tours but still in various theaters...

I think CABs are very subjective in how they are awarded. However there is not a whole lot of subjectivity with the CIB! Just my 2 cents!

I did two tours on a destroyer to the Tonkin Gulf in 72-73 and again n 74. After getting out I became friends with a man who served as a NCO with the 101 airborne. Although I was on the gunline getting combat pay and having our distroyers hit by the NVA my friend was offended if I referred to myself as a combat veteran. He also put his CIB as his most rewarding medal and asked me if I had one. The Navy does not give them out and if so I'm sure are SEAL teams would be wearing them. I was offended by my friend looking down on me. On the other hand I have a friend who was a Green Beret and did things my friend can not dream of and treats me with full respect.

What’s interesting is that the lay of the land and combatives have change dramatically on the nonlinear battlefield. More Sericemembers are either wounded or killed by EIDs or indirect fire than in direct engagement with the enemy. Shortly before our deployment the unit we replaced had a member of their convoy team die in an IED attack, our command lost another in an IED attack during our tour and immediately after we left the unit that replaced us lost two in a rocket attack on our home base. The Green Zone, the supposedly “safe” area in Iraq was rocketed 444 times in the year we were there, killing three on the palace grounds and we had four wounded working out in the gym on another FOB by a rocket attack. This is why they issue you hazardous duty pay. Our particular TTP for our convoy team was to protect the principle at all cost and to push through the kill zone when engaged, notify command of the situation and let the QRF team to close with, engage, and destroy the enemy, apparently something that was looked down upon by the “real” Soldiers. Some of convoy team members, who went outside the wire almost everyday, heard that if they were not stopping the convoy, pursuing, closing with and destroying the enemy, that they were useless to the cause. You try to do your best in whatever mission you are given and make your contribution to the best of your ability. So we were only able to issue a small number of CABs for our deployment. But the Soldiers know what they experienced. Sometimes you can’t tell a book by its cover.

as a lower enlisted grunt i would say yes. always respected the c.i.b ranger scroll+tab s.f all that high speed shit .ment you knew your stuff and you can tell a good n.c.o buy there squad plt company ect. but as a grunt i personally I did view being a grunt or a in a combat MOS more Superior to other Moss because I knew the type of training is not held at the same standard for combat MOS a postman in the army just ate the same type of Rifleman as someone in the Infantry Point Blank

I think there is defiantly a difference. I grew up watching combat movies. Nothing will compare to the actual experience. Actually having an rpg just miss you. Impact on a wall next to a fellow Marine. Sending rounds down range engaging the threat hearing medic. By the time you turn around you see your guy unconscious with shrapnel ripped threw him. Being dragged to a safer area to be worked on with blood spilling out into the streets.

Actually put in positions where actually making the choice to take another’s life or not. Being on a react team loading vehicles and mortars coming in while loading. The experiences that bring your battalion 14 home in body bags and your platoon having a huge portion with Purple Hearts.

There is a difference. A real difference. To including the knowledge those people possess.

I also know guys that went into combat zones and maybe a shot was fired at their whole unit once during the whole deployment and no one was shot.

I think there is a major difference. But look down on? No. It’s not always a persons choice to be deployed or not. Or even into combat. Does that make that person less honorable? Does the person that took a job out side of one that deploys knowing they could not handle combat less honorable?
We needed our doctors back in Germany where some of our casualties where flown to just as much as our Coremen on the front lines or our riflemen. I was quite thankful when a bird would fly over we knew it was ours and were not concerned about enemy bombers like previous wars.

Thanks to the air force that suport comes from out side of combat zones as well.

All the guys out side of our combat zone making sure we were getting the logistics needed and as best as they could. All those training to replace us so we could have a break and come home in combat rotations that may not end up replacing us due to political agreements and changes in the war. But were training to go. I look at it as more of a validation badge. But also know there are zones and areas or people that have received it. That never actually “experienced” combat in its raw and personal form either.

I got the CAB, but many others in my unit didn't.

What was the difference? My platoon went on a mission to Mosul and the other platoons didn't. They went to Hillah and Baghdad. What was different about Mosul? We had a bunch of crazy bastards attack the base right by where my platoon was sleeping that night. Other people on that same base didn't get the CAB that night simply because they were in a different area.

Had those idiots decided to attack a different section of the base, I never would have received the CAB. Had the other platoons been ambushed during their missions, they would have the CAB as well. But, for whatever reason, the bad guys attacked different convoys.

Does the CAB and the CIB mean something?

Sure. It means you got to find out what it's like to have bad guys trying to kill you.

That's it.

However, if someone got deployed and spent the entire time fixing vehicles, tending to the wounded in a hospital at BIAP or loading ammo on an aircraft , they did their part and that allowed everyone else to do their part.

If they were in country in any capacity, I respect that.

I've never met anyone in my service that has looked down on non-combat veterans. That said, there are perceptions as it relates to those that appear to "dodge" deployments or haven't deployed at least once in the 17+ years we've been in this persistent conflict in the ME. It's a matter of timing. I joined my first unit in 91 shortly after they came back from Desert Storm, feeling somewhat like I missed out. However, if you do your job and take care of Soldiers, the rest will fall in place. Back then, a Soldier could expect to deploy in some capacity at least twice in a 20 year career. For me, it turned into five (two to Bosnia and three to Iraq). As for what occurs in combat, that too is a product of timing and poor luck. Never met anyone that was in a hurry to get a PH.

Well I served and was never sent anywhere. I signed the same check as everyone else who served. Just mine wasn't accepted it seems. I do think the men who saw combat should get more respect than I deserve. I salute those men . Thanks for all we all do or did.