I was recently awarded a bronze leaf for one my ribbons. Am I required to wear it?

small price to pay for being recognized for performance, ribbons cost about what a buck, a quarter? seems they used to be about a dime, it's an art preparing your decorations, rather than force the attachment pins through the ribbon try clipping the prongs smooth with fingernail clippers, then sand smooth and use the tiniest drop of super glue and place it, if not they get hung on the bar when you slide them on, I do mean tip of needle tiny though because it spreads and will cause a stain, you have to get it right first time though and should not work on ribbon on the holder, locking hemostats work well for holding, otherwise you could mess up others and it becomes a soup sandwich, I used super glue but others might be better, efficiency is whatever scores, as to requirement that's a USAF regulation and I don't know, it was required in USMC or you were "out of uniform" and if one stood a Meritorious promo or Marine of the Month board part of the process by screeners was to compare what your record authorized to what you showed up in, attention to detail, congrats and enjoy it

SSgt (Join to see) - surely you can scrape up 2 bucks every year or so.

CWO3 (Join to see) - Depends on the ribbon but most are around $1.00. If you buy them at an actual PX. I went to get some back up ribbons just in case so I looked good and at the shop I went to they wanted $7.00 for a NDSM ribbon. I told them I wouldn't pay that much and got it on amazon for $2.50 free shipping. Sure it wasn't $1 but I wasn't going to spend $7 on a NDSM.

SPC (Join to see) - What did you do? Go to the local Army-Navy Surplus store?
Even Marlow White (the most expensive place that I could think of) doesn't charge but $1.20 or so for just the ribbon. Now placing a rush order on it and having it mounted appropriately will cost you an arm and a leg, but then again, why?
You could even have mail ordered it from the Exchange for $1 for the ribbon.