What advice would you give soldiers on how to approach having their end of tour awards taken away?

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 22:30:44 -0400

Our task force was split between 3 locations in our recent deployment to Afghanistan. Deployment went well besides your typical undermanned and overworked issues. Our time was coming to an end and submitted our end of tour awards, ARCOMS with C device. A month before leaving the BDE Commander wanted to do a "spur board" for people to earn their gold spurs. Most people who have deployed with a CAV unit before pointed out that it was a given to get gold spurs if you deployed with a CAV and that a "spur board" is for your silver spurs. Requirements were to life 100,000lbs collectively in teams of 4 and run 20 miles in a week. At the end of the week there was a virtual board to attend with the BDE Commander. A majority of the task force is not a CAV unit and were given a week to learn everything on top of working 14-16 hour days. The day of the virtual board someone took it upon themselves to post the Fiddlers Green above the webcam in the conference room. The rest of the group was not aware until entering the room that it was there. A soldier ended up getting caught reading it off the wall. The BDE Commander was made aware of the Fiddlers Green posted on the wall and continued with the "spur board". The commander of the troop was brought in afterwards and was told that no-one at our location would receive end of tour awards. Even people who didn't attend the spur board would have their award pulled. Does this seem like an extreme mass punishment? Most of the soldiers this was their first deployment and went above and beyond on expectations just to have their award taken away. Would it be wrong to bring this to IG or how would you handle the situation. The troop commander has since caved and stopped fighting for us to receive awards. The BDE commander has also changed out. Any advice on how to approach this would be helpful or do we just cut our losses?

Response by SGM Bill Frazer made Sep 22 at 2021 10:38 PM

SGM Bill Frazer — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 22:38:11 -0400

Awards and their approval or denial is in the hands of the command, short of blatantly denying an award for Valor, you are stuck. I know some units awarded MSM's upon PCS to damn near all their senior NCO's and some units never awarded an MSM to anybody under E7 for years.

Response by SSG Brian G. made Sep 22 at 2021 10:43 PM

SSG Brian G. — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 22:43:20 -0400

Ok so the BDE commander has changed out. This could be a good thing. Maybe see if your command would consider submitting them again? Also, it is to note that the IG would have nothing to do or say in this as awards are at the discretion of command and not guaranteed.

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 22 at 2021 11:53 PM

MSG Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 23:53:39 -0400

How to tell people you're a douche bag without actually telling me.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 23 at 2021 1:24 AM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 01:24:46 -0400

ARCOMs for everyone on a deployment is absurdly generous. I haven't seen that since the early years of the war when ARCOM was the lowest award you could grant in a combat zone. The award authority for an ARCOM is the Brigade Commander, and usually that means this Soldier had a direct effect on the whole Brigade. That's probably not true for everyone who had ARCOMs in.

You can go to IG but they will tell you that as SGM Bill Frazer stated, leave and awards are at the discretion of the approval authority. Resubmit your awards as AAMs where the SCO is the approval authority and save the ARCOM for one or two of your very best.

Response by SSG Edward Tilton made Sep 23 at 2021 12:40 PM

SSG Edward Tilton — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 12:40:37 -0400

Medals, ribbons, badges and do dads seem to be what it's about

Response by MSG Thomas Currie made Sep 23 at 2021 3:17 PM

MSG Thomas Currie — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 15:17:47 -0400

If any of this story is accurate, the entire unit is a shambles from the top down.

Any Bde Cdr with even the slightest professionalism would have rejected a blanket recommendation to award ARCOMs for the achievement of maintaining an internal body temperature at or above 98 degrees (which seems to be the level of achievement expected for an award in your unit)

Assuming your story is correct, the Bde Cdr seems totally unfamiliar with Cav traditions. You are correct that a board is not normal for gold spurs -- on the other hand, given what seems to be a very broad definition of "Cav" in your unit, combined with a very broad definition of "combat" across the Army, I could understand a commander giving serious consideration to who had EARNED gold spurs. Especially since you make it clear that many of the people expecting gold spurs were not in any way cav troopers. That being said, any sort of a knowledge and skills based board or test for GOLD spurs is totally at odds with Cav traditions in the US Army. The only two factors for GOLD spurs are was the soldier serving in/as Cavalry and did the soldier serve in combat. Your description of this "board" seems to be disregarded both those standards.

Again, relying only on your version of events, there appear to be both unrealistic expectations and an appalling lack of leadership at all levels up and down the chain of command (so much so that I have a hard time believing the account is entirely accurate - although I don't doubt that you described what you felt you saw).

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 24 at 2021 12:43 PM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 12:43:08 -0400

You have 2 years to recommend or be recommended for an award. Resubmit with the new commander and hope he feels differently than your previous commander.

Response by TSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 29 at 2021 2:41 AM

TSgt Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 02:41:22 -0400

After Biden's Afghanistan disgrace does it matter? It is like being MVP on the last place team in the league.
Example:
Compare a picture of Milley's ribbons, the General who lost the war, and Eisenhower's ribbons who won a war.
All that being said the troops, the boots on the ground men and women for the most part served proudly with honor. But same same as Nam ,, D.C. disgraced us.