Why are officers recognized with awards more than enlisted?

Man, there are a LOT of officers responding with their thoughts on why the enlisted ranks don't get the amount or level of awards that officers get.

And most of these answers are hilarious. But only because I'm a RETIRED MSG and it doesn't matter to me anymore.

There is an unwritten law in the Army that the higher the rank you are, the higher the award you get for doing a thing. and I am not whining, it really doesn't matter to this retired Soldier so I am speaking objectively.

I have been on the receiving end of not getting the award that an officer who did the same thing DID get, I have put in Soldiers for Awards and seen officers that I put in get upgraded while enlisted (especially lower enlisted) get downgraded for THE SAME ACTIONS.

And when I have mentioned these discrepancies, I have been told "that must just be your unit," "that's probably not what happened," or my favorite, "you don't understand the dynamics of what happens at higher levels."

I WAS the higher damned level. I ran a Batalion and a Brigade S2 Section. And I repeatedly watched as enlisted Soldiers got awarded lesser awards than officers, often for events in which the enlisted Soldier did something well beyond the officer's actions.

This is an Army-wide issue, and one that has been going on for decades. In 1993 as a Private I got an Certificate of Achievement for beating the best time on the "Green Hell" obstacle course in Fort Sherman Panama. My partner, a junior NCO, got an AAM. Later I found out that two officers, a 1st Lieutenant and a Captain, recieved ARCOMs for getting the "best time," which wasn't actually the best time but what translated to the "best time for a pair of officers," which they happened to leave off of the award citation.

In Iraq in 2009 I put a couple of Soldiers in for ARCOMs for their actions in the Intel field. I put our OIC in for an ARCOM as well, because I knew that putting him in for anything less would be a ska in the face that would cause all of my Soldiers' Awards to get slapped down. Our OIC had only been with us for bout a third of the deployment, prior to that we were without an OIC, having myself and one other NCO to run things. Our OIC was awarded a Bronze Star, and most of my Soldiers received AAMs.

I and most NCOs have long understood that the system is INCREDIBLY flawed, and that one just needs to Lee their teeth together and grind it out because the people who would CHANGE the flawed system are the same people who currently BENEFIT from the flawed system - namely, officers. and it's not ONLY officers; Senior NCOs are often given awards that are WILDLY out of proportion for the actions they have taken. Not too long ago a 1SG got an ARCOM for reporting Soldiers who were complaining ONLINE about their leadership. This, to me, says that her "trolling" of these Soldiers is equal in merit to the Army as my actions in COMBAT that merited an ARCOM. Which is, obviously, fucking RIDICULOUS.

I am not trying to offer any type of fix for this, I am simply stating the facts: officers (and to an extent senior NCOs) receive preferential treatment when it comes to awards. Anyone who tells you different is either delusional, bullshitting, or an officer who is trying to defend a flawed system.

And that's okay. My DD-214 is two pages long with all of the damned awards and decorations I received by being in the wrong place at the wrong time for the Army over three different decades, and I've found that once you're out not a single one of them matters.

So drive on, Airborne. Huaa?

A very reasonable question with a very simple answer. Junior officers, the ones in closet contact with enlisted personnel aren't very adept leaders. They are lucky to know how to do the simplest tasks of leadership let alone something sophisticated like recommending personnel for awards and decorations. Their immediate superiors aren't much better. However senior officers who are well aware of the significance that decorations can have on a military career rarely witness the accomplishments of the troops as individuals. What's the solution? If you witness an act of valor or a significant accomplishment that you feel is worthy of recognition, bring it to the attention of your immediate superior. Suggest a that they submit a recommendation for recognition if they're too dense to take the hint. Write it up yourself if you have to. Then hope that someone does the same for you when you deserve it. If anyone gives you trouble for following my advice, refer them to me.

Don't get wrapped around the axle on awards, sometimes there is not much rhyme or reason. Do you best always, I never worried about any awards. End of tour before PCS orders is a give away award in my book and does not occur that much in the Marine Corps. We also don't give promotion point for them either. Yes, looks nice on your uniform but you evals and performance are what count in my book. Semper fi and keep charging.

SSG(P) (Join to see) First you need to understand responsibility before awards will make sense... I served from E-1 to O-6. From E-1 to E-5, I got an AAM (Impact), a JSAM, and an ARCOM when I went to OCS... I could not rate a MSM until I was Captain, or an LOM until I was a Colonel and Brigade Commander.
It is all about level of responsibility for both officers and NCOs.
What do you think you should be getting?
Awards are not what you want or expect, they are what you earn. And, yes, rank does play a role.

Everyone I have ever met in the military, who is worth a damn, cares more about what's between your ears than what's on your chest......

I would be interested to see statistics on this subject. As I have personally seen Sergeant Major's and First Sergeant's who never, "left the wire" receive Bronze Star's with Valor devices within months of returning CONUS while Lance Corporals, who obviously deserve, and who were submitted for the same award, by astute and professional leaders, never receive one.

For obvious reasons this can create a caustic command in which the lower ranks assume that their superiors are only out for themselves, and may have "trashed" (i.e. not submitted beyond the initial chain of command) the write-ups.

I think that rank SHOULD NOT influence the receipt of awards, but would argue that it does. Furthermore any O-6's+, E-8's, and/or E-9's who have received unearned awards would, in all likelihood, argue against or downplay this belief, by saying, "it doesn't or shouldn't matter". When in reality, it does matter and heavily influences whether or not people stay in.

Whether people want to acknowledge it or not, we are still a war time military force, and should be trying to retain all of the savages we can, not the careerists.

My input comes with the "results will vary" disclaimer. First, I'm in the camp that there's way too many decorations awarded, way to many patches/badges, etc. My NAM had to be signed off by the Fleet Vice Admiral. That's how I grew up. BTW my NAM showed up in my in-box. So being somewhat jaded, I progressed from E-1 to O-6 to Command and had these percentage awards authorized. My policy was if I could do up to 5% of the body count or whatever, it would apply equally to ENL and OFF. It was more of a struggle to get ENL stuff done right primarily due to the crappy writing skills of the NCO and JO community. To make it work took some babysitting. So if you're evenly spreading, sometimes you have to make a determination that a pro rata split isn't right.
When you have Dets spread all over the world, including the badlands, you'll see more award focus there. Stuff I couldn't sign off on had to be staffed up and that meant XO and I were heavy into the write up. It's a poor reflection on the Skipper to have stuff tossed back. I batted 100% through MSMs. LOMs were prepared after I had a heart to heart with the Flag and received the go ahead to push it up. The amount of work, responsibility, impact, or whatever it is now called, had been diluted greatly during my time in and continued unabated afterward. When I was doing promotion boards (including O-5/6), the notion of EOTs was just starting to be mainstream to the point of reviewing officers wondering why one wasn't awarded given a must promote recommendation on the Fitrep. I knew the awards system was seriously broke then.

Oh saw a piece of COL Charles Williams sage input. Never fall into the "quantity" trap. An analogy is flipping burgers. If flipping 200 and hour is the standard, what reward for doing 300? Same skill, same span of control, same output, same risk. Your reward will be employee of the month and maybe a 50 cent raise. Consider awards are more for the lasting difference you make after you're gone. My NAM was an O-1/2 award for building new stuff in Antarctica that hadn't been done before. That and running the surface SAR operation and having to fetch boondoggler politicians when their Huey went down in a whiteout. Add a dash of freeing a brand new stuck ice breaker (Polar Star) using explosives techniques I devised. That I was told was solidly in the range of a NAM. Times change.

Most Enlisted I know pretty much agree that the awards system is broken. Officers know it's broken as well, but they are more likely to benefit from it than enlisted. However, the biggest thing that stops soldiers from getting awards is laziness from their leadership, and that includes senior NCO's.

I would like to add, however, that enlisted are less likely to have a plan for their future, to plot out their means of advancement. Officers tend to know how much their career depends on OER's and awards, and they actually work to ensure a successful career. If you focus on your career path and work hard to achieve long term goals, you are more likely to end up with awards.

Here is my two cents (maybe a little more than two cents):

You have been in almost 9 yrs and your only award is an AAM. Which you got for getting 9 Soldiers back into the Reserves. The written standard (as you stated) is x3 and you get an AAM. Was it written that if you got x9 that you would get an ARCOM? If not, then oh well. Instead of focusing on what you DIDN'T get, focus on what you did get. Perhaps, in the minds of the powers that be, AAM is simply the standard...no more no less. Or it could be they didn't feel that x9 justified an ARCOM. Or it could be that they weren't sure how to quantify the bullets to warrant an ARCOM. There are a number of reasons why.

As for your statement of being in almost 8 yrs and your only real award is an AAM......well, sometimes that's how it goes. I was in initially for 10 yrs and when I ETSd, I walked out with 4 ribbons on my chest.....which were an AAM, NDSM, ASR, and an OSR. Also, at no time did I ever receive a PCS nor ETS award (there is nothing stating those HAVE to be given). Was it bad leadership, or leadership that didn't think I did enough, or was it that I just didn't do enough? Who knows. Did I feel I was owed more? Sure, I thought that. But knowing what I know now looking back, I didn't deserve more than I got. It's just how the game is played. Besides the fact that rank is not supposed to be a factor in awards (with the exception of certain awards), rank is taken into account based on the level of responsibility. I didn't get my first ARCOM until after I finished my deployment to Iraq as a SPC. My next ARCOM was after a WAREX where I was but a SGT and I was dual hatting as Team Leader and Detachment Sergeant (SFC position).

Now, looking at your DORs, I see that you made SPC in April of 2012. Here it is April of 2017 and you are still a SPC. You should have been promoted to SGT and working on SSG by now. You can be certain that your Leaders are looking at this. This tells them.....and me....that your drive is not all there. Plus, it would appear that you are only doing things to get medals. If this is your only goal....things are going to be a little rough for you down the road. Besides doing Military Funeral Rites, and getting x9 Soldiers back into the Reserves, what else have you done to better your unit and the Army? Are you going outside your comfort zone within your unit to learn things that no one else wants? For example, taking charge of new Soldiers to the unit and being their Sponsor? Or, taking charge of the unit's APFT program, or HT/WT program, or being an assistant to the Training and/or OPS NCO? Serve as a Squad Leader? Anything other than being a Squad Member and Funeral details?

I'm not saying all this to chastise you, I'm saying all this to give you food for thought.

Sometimes it is perception. An Officer or Senior NCO may be doing a lot more than you see. There is a lot of things going on behind closed doors, or in conferences with senior leadership. There is more planning and organizing than the average Joe can see. I'm sure this is not always the case, but many times it is happening that way, and the folks at the bottom of the chain do not want to believe it.

Theater policy - official or not - was that every platoon leader and principle staff officer would be awarded a Bronze Star. After that, the quota for the unit was pretty much used up except for the CSM and 1SGs. I suggested the creation of a Snowflake Device to be affixed to the ribbon for those who earned this award while never leaving air conditioning. Command was not amused.

1. Organizational culture plays a role. Some units give out more awards than necessary, others give out very few. A lot of it depends on your leadership.

2. With nearly 11 years of service, two deployments, and a successful company command I have two ARCOMs and an MSM. None of my awards were impact awards. I can count the number of times in my career I've seen an officer of any grade receive an impact award on one hand.

3. Your being an 8 year E4 immediately sends up red flags, especially in a relatively high density MOS. It's very possible you're being held back by a lack of slots, but with that said what have you done to distinguish yourself? Are you scoring 270+ on the APFT, shooting expert, and finding ways to go the extra mile? Do you have SSD1 and BLC done? Have you stepped into an NCO position to fill a vacancy?

4. There's something called the burden of command. It's an incredible honor, but an extremely challenging experience at the same time. In my case I was responsible for both the successes and failures of 131 men. Command does not mean sitting in your office drinking coffee while your men work. If you think your Officers do nothing one of two things are happening: either they're all shitbags (unlikely) or you're simply oblivious to the work they've put in. (Likely) Any officer worth his salt is on step 8 of the TLPs by the time you arrive at formation.

5. You're awful close to whining in the post. Tagging "fairness" isn't helping your case either. Nothing is fair on the battlefield.

Awards tend to be aligned with position and responsibility, along with achievement. Many of the awards you are referencing are service awards because an officer completed an assignment as a Platoon Leader, Staff officer, or commander.
Enlisted Soldiers don't get assignments where their position and responsibilities rate a Service award until they've been in for a while.
Instead, enlisted Soldiers tend to get awards for doing something extraordinary, like winning a Soldier of the Year board or really putting in work above and beyond during a training event.

If you feel like you aren't being recognized for what you do, sometimes the best thing to do is put yourself in a position to be recognized.
Lead training.
Volunteer for additional duties.
Try something hard, like an Audie Murphy Board.

I can tell you that the same thing happens when you get senior enough; people just expect you to perform outstandingly, because you are the First Sergeant, Sergeant Major, etc.
Honestly at this stage in the game, I don't need any more medals to validate what I do; it is as much a hassle to update a ribbon for one more AAM or something. But I absolutely recognize what a little formal recognition means to my Soldiers, so I try to give them opportunities to excel and see what the results are. Excellence tends to self-identify.

From my perspective, part of the problem looks like you haven't been in a unit long enough for leadership to get a good handle on your abilities and capabilities - based on your profile, you've been in 5 units since you made specialist 5 years ago.

That means your leadership has, on average, 24 days of IDT (half of which is tied up in admin and mandatory training) and 2-3 weeks of ECT to get you integrated into the unit and begin to evaluate you. That's not a lot of time - and then you're gone to the next unit. Given a choice between writing an award for you and the Specialist who's been in the unit for 2-3 years, who do you think is going to get the ARCOM?

My advice would be to find a unit - preferably an Engineer unit - and stick with it.

Couple things cross my mind inreading the question and responses....
1. Why are you a 8 year SPC?
2. Have you done something to warrent/deserve/earn an award?
3. What is your command policy on awards? Some have PCS, 300 APFT, 40/40 range qual....
I went the first 8 years/all of my enlisted time with 1 unit transfer without getting an award (and I went above the standard by doing CLS, NBC, and UPL). Sometimes it's a leadership issue.
My policy and expectation is to earn an award you go above and beyond your job and/or grade. I have awarded PFCs for doing MSG tasks, because that SM exceeded the expectation.
Officers carry a greater level of responsibility and they tend to get noticed more (both positively and negatively), that could be why you feel or have seen more officers get awards.

Bad leadership. Soldiers should be rewarded for going above and beyond.

Okay, this is ridiculous. Officers don't get recognized more often than enlisted. In all actuality, the lower enlisted members probably get more recognized than any other group in the military. I think this is for a few reasons: 1. Lower enlisted are usually younger and need that pat on the back to keep their morale up, 2. NCOs by that time don't really care about massing awards, especially if they have already made it to E6 and thus, in the army it goes to the centralized boards (i can't speak on the other services. But more importantly, who actually thinks to put the LT in for an AAM? No one. He or she is expected to uphold the standard and thus doing great really isn't an award worthy feet. Go looking around at the ribbon racks of officers and enlisted members and tell me which ones have the most AAMs and ARCOMs and such. I be never seen an officer with more than one ARCOM and I don't believe I've ever seen one wearing an AAM. This sounds more to me like someone pouting because they haven't earned enough medals. You must exceed the standard to earn medals.go out and start exceeding!

I can go on for hours about this very topic. There is a belief that level of responsibility (read rank) determines the award. On paper this is not true. Every award has a set criteria and any Soldier that meets said criteria can be awarded that. However, fact of the matter is too many so called leaders tie rank to the award. This is why most E-7 and above get BSMs as deployment awards and E-6 and below typically do not (unless it has a V). I always read the criteria and put my Soldiers in for awards that met it. Every single time I wrote one up that was higher than an ARCOM it was summarily downgraded due to the grade of the Soldier. It didn't matter to the chain of command that they clearly met the criteria.

In my opinion it's true. Of my 27 years served, my last 10 I held many high profile positions to include at the Division level. A lot of the things I developed and accomplished were firsts. I was also deployed a couple of times during my last 10 where I accomplished high level payoff things that had never been done before. The significance of my last 10 years is that's how far you can go back to write a retirement award. To shorten the story, my COL submitted me for a LOM, and since I was at the Division level it had to be approved outside my installation by the next higher command. Well it was downgraded to a MSM and never left my command, but meanwhile several senior offices and even a few Sergeants Majors received the same award (LOM) for working at the Division for a few years and doing various other things, but many did not have a right Shoulder patch. By this time I had several. So this is not only perception, it's reality. Officers take care of officers, and anyone below E9 enlisted is on his own seemingly. I was once in a unit early on and after a deployment the Commander told the PLDRs/PSGs that awards will be done by rank regardless of accomplishment. So I serverd all my years in the Army and successfully accomplished my mission above and beyond in many astuere environments and I get the same award as a MAJ gets for PCSing after two years. Hummm...

I can never begin to think I have the answer to this, but in my limited experience the service you belong to has a lot to do with this. When I was at HQUSCENTCOM I'd put individuals up for awards and the Marines would routinely deny or downgrade them while the other services would approve, or at least approve a downgraded version, of what was submitted. I agree with comments that more senior individuals realize the significance of awards and that younger leaders most probably have not learned the techniques of writing a nomination that will check all the boxes.