PCS, Impact, Deployment, and other awards: Should they be determined by rank?

MSG,

The only way to fix this system is to start with the Leadership. When you have to sit in a Staff Meeting and listen to and I quote "SSG's and below will not receive MSMs only E7's and above" is a toxic contribution to the award system and unit morale. The award should be based off of the credible contributions that the soldier gave to the unit. When you start applying rank to awards, it sets a bad tone because a junior soldier will never expect to receieve better than what he or she is used to or entitled to because they have grown accustomed to a "false standard". Senior leaders automatically assume that because of the rank they hold they will receive a particular award and might not be deserving of it. Its even worse when you try to fight for what you deserve and you hear "Well, we are only allowed to give out an X amount of MSMs or ARCOMs per year according to BDE policy".

Another issue with awards is just pure laziness on the leaders part. If your BN/BDE says this award is due 60-90 days out, then do your part as a leader and take care of your soldier(s). Do not wait until the last minute to draft up an award that you know the soldier does not deserve or turn in an award that is pretty much a duplicate of someone elses award that PCS'd recently. That leader will ensure that they do everything in their power to receive the award they deserve, so they should treat their soldiers the same.

This is a soft subject that is rarely addressed by higher and it is something that should not be continued to get swept under the rug. I understand you can add to the regulation and enforce policies, but there is no checks and balances to the policies that are put in place and that is the other problem.

Absolutely NO! Soldiers regardless of rank should be put in for what they deserve! If a Soldier went above and beyond, met criteria then HIS/HER COC should fight tooth and nail for that award. Let them decide as per reg on if it should be down graded or not. So when that Soldier see who was the approving authority he/she knows that their immediate recommender recognized their sacrifices! Too many time I have had BN push back awards saying down grade. I send back saying NO let the next level of approver do their part. No one wants to be the BAD GUY but at the end of the day I say fight for what your Soldiers deserve! I mean lets be honest what are they gonna do bend your dog tags and deploy you????? lol

Simply put no. Does it happen? Hell yes. We as leaders need to do what our rank can handle to prevent this from happening. On the other hand, if you were offered say an MSM for a deployment while those similar in rank and position received an ARCOM, would you fight to have it changed? Most would say yes, but when it came time, nothing would happen. I was given an ARCOM for my deployment as a SPC. I felt that what i had done merited that. E-5s were given the same, and 1 SSG and everyone else up got MSMs. Not fair, but it happens all too often.

Tying an award to a rank has always been one of my pet peeves. Awards should be based off of merit and nothing else. Give the award based on what happened and not the rank of the individual. 

AFI 36-2803 (the Air Force Awards & Decs reg) prohibits commanders from "hard-coding" specific decorations to specific ranks.  That said, trying to award higher decorations almost universally requires additional justification. 
In my experience though, everyone I've seen put in for a higher decoration had easily earned it. 

Without knowing what the SM did I can not say whether or not he/she deserves the MSM. If you read the regulation and you still feel that the award is worthy then bring it up with the supervisor.

Awards are always going to be a hot button issue, but at the end of the day it is all about scope of responsibility.

Saw it happen during/after OIF, never agreed with it, most likely was someone at the BDE level had a "policy" based on rank.....should be based off of accomplishment/service during the deployment.

Rewards should not be "reserved based on rank". That being said, obviously, a SPC or SGT will likely have much less impact on anything than a SFC or 1SG. Additionally, higher ranking personnel receive credit for all of the achievements of those they supervise directly and indirectly, therefore the chance for them to receive a higher award are greatly increased. Is it fair that higher ranking personnel get credit for the achievements of those they supervise and therefore get higher awards? Well, you would assume that superiors set the conditions and issued the guidance that allowed subordinates to achieve success and earn their awards, although this is sometimes not the case. As for unit limitations (written or unwritten) set on awards, (For example, a SGT or SSG cannot be awarded an MSM for a PCS award due to the fact that his/her PSG will not be allowed to receive anything more than an MSM.) sometimes that does not take into account what contributions/achievements were actually made by the individuals involved. A brief review of regulations reveals that there is very broad guidance on criteria for earning any specific award. That explains why there are so many opinions as to who is eligible for what. My experience has been that if you are doing what you do in hopes of being "justly" rewarded or recognized, you will most often find yourself disappointed.

While most of agree that the answer to this questions should be "NO", I think we can all state examples of seeing this happen.  Personally, I had a MSM downgraded to a ARCOM because the BN CDR wouldn't approve it.  This was after I took the steps required to get a MEDPROS account to keep not just my company but my entire BN's medical readiness up to date while downrange as well as maintained personal records, leave and other information squared away for a company that was down range and deployed over 4 different base camps.  During that same deployment I wrote a Soldier up for an ARCOM.  It was a strong write up showing specific examples of how this soldier went above his normal duties to help out the overall mission.  The same BN CDR downgraded it to an AAM.  Now while I, like most here, are not or were not in the service for medals and ribbons, it still sucks to see all that hard work go without what I consider to be properly awarded while people that did nothing beyond what was tasked to them walks away with a BSM or MSM.  Oh well, all my ribbons sure look great in my shadow box and knowing that I deployed several times and was able to bring each of my Soldiers home is the best award any leader can ask for.