Why are officers recognized with awards more than enlisted?

Rank has it's privileges, there is no way an officer could ever receive the same award as a private. Either the officer gets a higher award or the private gets nothing. Sometimes the officer get an award and the private gets nothing.

The only time I actually received a medal for work I did was at my retirement ceremony... Because I wrote the draft for it. At the insistence of my supervisor who told that if I wanted one I needed to "write down all the stuff I did over the past year". He also informed me that he was not going to write up my final annual performance report as he was not going to give top marks on any part of it; mainly because his impression of my position was that I was extraneous, a total waste of desk space. He told me that the DOD regulations I was attempting to follow were a waste of time, in his opinion.
I had had other officers as supervisors who, while complimenting me on my work ethic and ability to do more than anyone should reasonably expect someone to do while working outside of my official duties, also expected that I write up my own medals and awards and they would sign them off. All while raising three children (two of which were 'special needs') as a single parent.

18 months after I retired, two of my old supervisors contacted me, asking if I had kept copies of the reports and the database I had designed. When I said no, and that I had turned the classified HDD and all supporting paperwork over to the COMSEC folks as ordered to... The one said "Shit!" I had to remind them that it would have been illegal for me to keep any of that project's paperwork and/or software copies of Classified material; even if nobody knew I had it.Then he told me that six months after I retired, the Air Force handed down a directive that Base-Level Network Control Centers were required to have records of every comm circuit and network connection on the base including diagrams of that circuit/connection and were they could be found on the Base. The very thing I had been spending the past seven years doing; and which was 90+% complete when I retired. And which they thought was an unnecessary waste of time. And which they were now close to 10% complete with three people working full time just on that project. And, they had failed their last (yearly) IG inspection. I was almost sad for them.

Ive sat in an office before and watched officers write out their own awards. Ive been there when someone walked in and mentioned to them that so and so needed their awards submitted by cob. Half the time the command wants to give officer something for nothing and asks them to turn in paperwork prior to the end of deploynent, training, etc. Hell, I didnt even get all my good conducts and didnt have any issues. Officer get bronze stars for wiping their own ass.

SGT Cody voye:
Never gave this any thought,
possibly doing your job & try to be outstanding in what you do with out thinking of medals ,
work on being an example , sounds like you may be in a bit of a Rut which brings unhappy thoughts,
look to what makes you happy while serving your Country.
Thank-you
For your Service

I have never received less than an ARCOM for a deployment. However, on my first tour in AFG, I was literally asked by my PLT Sgt if I would be interested in a promo and an MSM (I was a squad leader at the time). We'd just arrived in theater. As far as I know, MSMs aren't normally awarded during deployments, I always thought it was the bronze star that was. But, I never saw an enlisted get a bronze star, only officers.

If every individual enlisted person compares themselves to a single officer, it will appear that officers get more awards. And by individual comparison, it certainly may be true; but overall, it isn't. The perception is deceiving, because it is just perception. In any given training or deployment cycle, a platoon leader may get an award, and those awards may stack up for that individual. But in the same cycle, how many awards are going to EMs? 5? More? Probably. That's a 5:1 ratio. Sure, CPL Smith doesn't have as many pretty ribbons as LT Jones, but collectively, the EM awards far outpace the officer awards.

Most of the ones I've known deserve a ribbon for having their un-implanted.

Wow.....it is always the Army.

Here are to examples of this in my own career that were horrendous, but NOT unexpected. Both of these were while I was assigned to USAG Vicenza. First, and by far the worse of the two, occurred at the award ceremony for 173rd upon their redeployment. The father of one of my son's classmates, a SSG at this time, was recognized with a Bronze Star-V. The citation was read and it included his actions in an intense fire fight, his rendering aid to an injured soldier under fire etc. Immediately following that they issued a Bronze Star to a 1LT for "being stationed on the FOB that took the most fire in the sector" :( Personally, my experience was this. My assignment there began with me as an E5 and ended with me as an E6 in an E7 position. I was supposed to have 2 E4s assigned to me as well but had none....I worked in this position just short of 4 years. During this time I managed 31 page hand receipt with several million dollars worth of equipment on it, ran a non-appropriated fund with transactions exceeding $1,000,000 each year (including a perfect score on a GAO audit of the fund) and won the USAG Europe (IMA-E at the time) NCO of Year competition as an E5. When it came time for my ETS award (I ETSd and then came back) my boss put me in for an MSM. Due to the approving authority being a GO it had to go through SETAF. The SETAF G1 and our S1 offices were co-located. I had a buddy that worked in the S1 and as my ETS date approached I went to see him to check on it. He got up and went through an open door to ask the civilian douche that worked in the G1. That dude, not being able to see me from his desk said out loud "We don't give MSMs to piddly E6s" I stuck my head around the corner and said "WTF did you SAY!" He stammered a bit about SETAF policy before I stormed out. The Garrison CDR (a gym buddy and Mass buddy) called my boss to let him know what happened and apologize. He could do an ARCOM. As I no longer needed awards for promotion purposes (and already having 5 ARCOMs) I told them that they could keep it...... Given what I had done while assigned there I was incredibly insulted. BTW, on that same douches desk was a STACK of Bronze Stars for all of the O4/MSGs and above who had spent their entire last deployment on BAF/KAF.

A lot of it has to do with JR leadership simply not writing them up. In VN, a single SSG, took notes for every action we engaged in so that he could write up deserving soldiers. He would later (in his little green notebook) write up the entire citation, then give it to his LT, who’d sign it off. Then during resupply, he’d send it to the 1st SGT, who took it to the XO, an got it endorsed then ran it up to the SGM, who also hand carried it.
I couldn’t care less about an achievement medal or arcom, but a lot of valorous deeds went unawarded due to a failure of local leadership.