Posted on Nov 6, 2013
PCS, Impact, Deployment, and other awards: Should they be determined by rank?
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Should a commander be able to say that they will only give a Bronze Star Medal to SSGs and above? Is this how awards are determined IAW AR 600-8-22? What if a SGT or below has met the criteria to earn a more prestigious award? Why does BDE or higher say that they are only alloted a certain number of awards for deployment or PCS or for an impact award? If your repsonse is "Tradition" or "That's the way it always has been," does that make it right?
Deployment
Awards
PCS
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 129
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How about a view from the Air side - my fellow Security Forces members for years would stand in Wing formations watching paper pushers getting all sorts of high level awards for stuff that was routinely part of their job. While we who are the 'Army for the Air Force' never received anything. When we deployed overseas, under centcom we actually started to receive a few awards here and there - but the same problem occurred, the higher awards went to the upper ranks who were back in the safe areas while our lower enlisted personnel were either on the wire or outside of it running offensive patrols. So this problem is not limited to one branch - the problem runs through all, unfortunately.
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I would contend, NO. There are several reasons for this. I am think of the origins of two awards in particular. The Air Medal and the Bronze Star.
The Air Medal started out in WWII to recognize those in the Air War. They were taking heavy casualties and the military wanted to make an award to reward those in the Air Corps. The criteria back then was survive. If you made it through your missions you got it as for serving in the Air War.
The Bronze Star Medal stated the same way. First the infantrymen got the CIB. But leadership wanted to raise morale and give them a medal for those on the ground. The original name was the "Ground Medal." I am sure it took no less than 1 General, 5 Colonels, and a handful of SGMs to think of that. It came to pass as the Bronze Star Medal. All Infantry that received a CIB also received the BSM as service medal. It was always a service medal.
Later you would be able to obtain the V device on the Bronze star and now the AF also gives out Air Medals with a V device also. I think it is fitting. Senior personnel in the military take on additional responsibility and device something for their service.
Napoleon would often refer that men will fight for a small piece of cloth and if he had a yard of ribbon he could take over the world, or something like that.
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Sadly, despite AR 600-8-22 clearly stating the contrary, this is exactly what happens in practice. I've seen first hand a more than deserving SGT, who was serving as a weapons squad leader for an Airborne Infantry Rifle Platoon at the forward-most FOB in Afghanistan, be recommended by his detachment commander for a BSM. Our CO gets the paperwork and says, 'There is NO WAY IN HELL that I am going to be the commander that gave an E-5 a Bronze Star. Have them rewrite it as an ARCOM.' This was in 2003, and the problem has not gotten any better.
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Sorry Im kinda late on this but, wow, I hear alot of gripes about "the standard" and it shouldnt be as such. Look if you did our job and you went above and beyond then you would be awarded as such. As a SGT and SSG I was awarded the BSM, was I looking for the award, no , did it surprise me, yes, because I wasnt focusing on the award , I was focusing on getting my guys home safe and doing my "job" to the fullest. I m sorry some of you got "robbed" but damn its just a ribbon. We all know what we have down range and in garrison, if you feel you did your job to the fullest of your capability then so be proud of that and dont worry about the ribbon. Having the most awards doesnt make you the winner!!
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SFC (Join to see)
SFC DeSersa, I believe you misunderstood the question and some answers. It's not really a gripe session. The question was about the mentality and thought process behind how an award is determined. While you may not care about awards, they are a fact of life in the Military, and if you're going to get one it needs to be a fair process and that is why we have the standard. The repsonses are peoples answer to the question that is usuallly accompanied by a story. The problem with you explanation is that you say we need to do our job and we'll be rewarded. That's the issue, there is no fairness when it comes to the awards anymore. If your job put you in harms way and mulitple firefights but your PSG sat on the FOB watching the share drive movies all day and he got a BSM and you got an ARCOM, would you not be upset that you risked your life everyday and received an award that didn't reflect your actions? If you say no, then I respectfully call BS. Plus, you have to consider the thought process of other soldiers who are told as soon as they are boots on ground that they will not receive an award higher than an ARCOM, regardless of what they do simply because of their rank. Some of them might feel that awards ARE important to them and may lose their will or motivation to do the best they can because they feel that they are getting nothing return. I don't want this to turn in to semantics. I know that a soldier should do their job regardless of the outcome, i just want to know if you think this is accpetable in the Military.
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SFC (Join to see)
SGT℗ Spangler,
Accetable no, reality yes… It just irks me to hear that this person got his for doing this and i only got this for doing this and that. But to put it short, write what you feel is acceptable, if your SM dserves a BSM, write the narrative and let them downgrade it. We are always being told you cant give them that award because of thier rank.. but as Leaders if we stand behind our decisions then the SM will get what he deserves. When the Soldier looks at the 638 and recognizes that YOU wrote something that he/she deserves, the award means alot more to the SM. But its seems our NCO Corps is just doing what its told or "the norm" with hitting that AR.. SMs get robbed of their just do on the daily, be we as Leaders can fix this and pull away from the norm! Just get away from the blame game and lets do our part to rectify the issue. ???
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SFC (Join to see)
SFC DeSersa,
Now that I can get behind! I can see your reasoning behind your answer now. If we do all that we can for our soldiers and they receive what we perceive to be "Sub-standard", then by all means, we can let them know that we did all we can to provide them with a tangible "Thank You" that justifies their actions. In that regard, I can see where they would have more pride in the award they received. At least they wont lose faith in the immediate leadership. As to their feelings about the upper echelon that may have downgraded their award, for whatever reason, I cannot predict. Thank you!
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If a command specifically states rank levels commensurate with awards, then that command is wrong and should be subject to serious IG investigation. However, as has been stated, the more prestigious awards are usually awarded to higher-ranking Soldiers because the scope of their position and field of their work is higher than lower-ranking enlisted. <div><br></div><div>When I deployed, I was the Ops officer in a G1. I had thirteen Soldiers reporting to me. I would funnel their information from the various cells (awards, evaluations, PA/SR, etc) into coherent data for the G1. While each cell had an E7 or E6 as the NCOIC, I had to know everything about each cell. They were narrowly focused, I was broadly focused. Therefore, at the end of the tour, I received an MSM while most of them received an ARCOM. </div>
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In our Unit, PSGs and PLs and above get BSMs, meanwhile, in order to get a BSM for an impact award, it would seem like you would have to go to the moon and back.
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No, they shouldn't however, it seems that every duty station that I was stationed had some type of policy that included something of this nature. The entire awards system becomes affected if the awards are not issued for the intended act they were designed to recognize. Following AR 600-8.22 is not a guarantee that the will be awarded but at least it gives a standard to follow for submission. I think the numbers game is something that comes around during times of high volume of submission of awards so that they don't feel obligated to just approve awards for the sake of the award and thus reducing the validity of the award. Which also is wrong. Each award should stand on it's own Merit.
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Awards "should" be based off of responsibility and not merit or rank. It is sad to consider that the norm but it is the habits of most to follow the norm. It is both our and incoming generations of leaders to break the cycle and make it right.
But also know that in order to put in for those high awards we must work on our verbage. I think that is why a lot of leaders just put in for ARCOM/AAM's becuase honestly a lot of leaders out there do not properly document their subordinates workings.
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SFC (Join to see)
Which is precisely why I keep a little notebook on me at all times, in order to document what I have done that is outside my normal duties as well as to record what my soldiers have done. I couldn't agree with you more SFC Cornelius!
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It seems that nothing has changed since I was in hundred years ago. If I remember right after we got back E-7/E-8s and LTs got BSMs, E-5/E-6s got MSM, and E-4 and below got ARCOM's. Quite frankly I was shocked to get anything. I went, I did my job and came back and got an ARCOM. Seemed kind of silly since I didn't do anything that merited a medal.
But I'm proud of it. But it's in the box at the back of my closet with all my other stuff. It didn't really mean much outside of my Army life.
But I'm proud of it. But it's in the box at the back of my closet with all my other stuff. It didn't really mean much outside of my Army life.
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