Why are officers recognized with awards more than enlisted?

why are officers punished more harshly for the same crimes as enlisted?

I've been on both sides of this issue, enlisted and commissioned. I had some AD time in Germany and got the standard ASR, OSR awards. Went into the Guard and got awards as an enlisted soldier. Then I got commissioned and didn't receive one award for the ten years I was an officer. Once I reverted back to enlisted, I started getting awards again. So my experience pre 9/11 was that enlisted got awards and officers didn't. Wartime changed that. I went on a peacekeeping deployment (MFO) as an Engineer Platoon Sergeant. We were attached to an Infantry Battalion. My understrength (15 soldiers) platoon completed 19 major force protection and comfort missions as well as infrastructure repair and replacement in 6 months. I put half my platoon in for ARCOMs and AAMs. I felt I deserved an AAM or ARCOM for leading this bastard crew and getting all those missions accomplished with little higher command support. We got a total of 0 (ZERO) awards other than what everyone got for the mission. One 2LT in the IN BN got an ARCOM for teaching a college class on the deployment that he wasn't qualified to teach. When the rest of my Engineer Battalion got back from an Iraq deployment, the officers got major awards (BSM, ARCOM, AAM). Enlisted soldiers got Letters of Commendation. One EM who saved his convoy from an enemy assault by the effective employment of his machine gun while under heavy enemy fire (should have gotten a BSM with V at least) got an AAM. Go figure.

Awards go a long way toward promotion points. Officers and senior NCOs are considered to be career soldiers, the awards give them a leg up when it comes to attaining the needed amount of points to progress along their career. Lower enlisted will get their chance, if they become a career soldier. Senior NCOs have usually maxed out on award points by the time that they reach E8 or E9.

Also, think about this. There was once situation where I (not just me alone, of course) had to take out some BMPs and tanks, en route to set up an ambush. As a Specialist I received an ARCOM for this engagement. My gunner (in the BC seat), a SSG received an ARCOM with a V device. My platoon Sergeant (he was our BC) received a bronze star, and the platoon leader received a silver star.
Now, I (actually, we, as there was more than one BFV involved) knew what to do, and managed to take down some enemy armor with our 25mm chain gun. My SSG, was spotting, and helped guide me in. My platoon Sergeant was at a commander's meeting, along with the platoon leader. I did the work, so I should get the big award, right? Wrong! I trained, I trained, I trained, in my job, and the job above me. I did what I was supposed to do. My gunner, did the same, he knew the job above him, and did well. Also, he trained me to do his job. He did more for that engagement than I did, because he not only trained himself, he trained me, so he gets a bigger award. My platoon Sergeant, although absent at the time of engagement, was responsible for the training of the entire platoon. His entire platoon did a thing, because he trained them well. So, he gets an even bigger award. The platoon leader, although very new in his career (and absent from the engagement), was responsible for the strategic placement of our troops, the dissemination of information, and overall responsible for the entire platoon. His leadership set the stage for a successful engagement of his platoon. He deserves an even bigger reward.
Ask yourself, how do you fight? Lower enlisted fight by shooting, using the training that they were provided. As you go up in rank, in the NCO support channel, it gets more complicated. A Sergeant, fights by shooting and maneuvering, but he also fights by using the lower enlisted on his team/squad, and therefore must train them to fight, as well as himself. SSG fights with maneuvering and shooting, but also maneuvers an entire section. A platoon sergeant and entire platoon leader will use the entire platoon to fight (and they might fight personally, themselves). But, the biggest weapon that the PL and PS have, is their platoon. The difficulty of using your assets to fight, becomes more difficult as you progress in rank. It is easy to use your weapon to fight (even in the face of certain death), compared to having to figure out how to send your entire platoon at them (it's takes strategy and intel, and experience).

It's always been the way. Furthermore it seems to me officers have a guaranteed career path with time to gain advanced degrees. That's how I perceived it. I wasn't interested in rank too much because I was in a Long Range Surveillance Detachment most of my career and rank was difficult to get because there were so few slots.

I was a SP4 Senior Medic in Korea, over a SSG, a few Sgts, a couple of PFC's and some KATUSA's. I was selected by our CW2 PA due to experience and skills. He put me in for an ARCOM for a couple of emergency situations I handled, one as a PFC. Then he DEROS'ed and it was downgraded to an AAM, i was told because I wasn't an NCO and ARCOM's were for E-5 and above. This was part of the reason I didn't re-up.

I don't think it's limited to Army. The Air Force has, or at least had, the same toxic culture toward enlisted when I was on active duty. Several times I had Company grade officers get awards for my work. I had the last laugh, when I got out I took more than 50% of the practical experience with me and the awards for successful mission accomplishment suddenly stopped. At this point in life I no longer care about the awards or the recognition, I just want all the money the VA denied in the 17 years it took between when I was put out for a disability and the time the VA finally approved it.

All jokes aside everyone knows without a shadow of a doubt that there is not one single officer that could’ve gotten anything without the help of his or Her enlisted subordinates. Whether anyone deserves a certain metal or not in the long run no one cares. Because who in their right mind will walk around in the civilian sector once they are discharge bragging about the metals on their uniform? If there was one bit of reality in that movie Transformers, Shia Lebeau character was trying to get a job and he kept pointing to the fact that he was a water a metal by President Barack Obama but in each interview none of those CEOs cared . In fact the one company when he told the CEO that he got an award by President Barack Obama the CEO looked at him and said we’re all Republicans here so that’s a (no)and checked off some box on a paper he had in front of him. Very few people are going to ask you did you get a metal for blowing up a bunker are gunning down enemies in a machine gun position, no one in their right mind is going to go around telling stories like that even if it’s true awards only look good on uniforms and when you live in a country that so plural if you did go around telling see stories in some bar or restaurant most likely you will have people of the same culture that you just fight against sitting in the same restaurant eating dinner and they might’ve had a relative that died in the same conflict. Soda actually upgrade and award just on the sheer fact that one of the officer our master sergeant and then officer Master Sergeant except that a war knowing they don’t deserve it speaks of the character and what you can expect of the individual once they get out in the civilian world, if they turn a blind eye now they will do it in the civilian sector which is not good so the company they end up working for.

I was a senior NCO for a unit in Iraq during OIF 1and 2 , and towards the end of the deployment, at a staff meeting, the leaders were told that we had authorized 2BSM’s, x-amount of ARCOMs, etc. I chimed in that I hadn’t seen anyone do anything that warranted a BSM. One of the butt-hurt officers said “That’s easy for you to say, because you already have one”. I don’t know who ended up getting what, because I was medevac’d out shortly after that. I ended up receiving two ARCOM’s w/device later through distribution for simply doing my job. What a waste of an award that could have gone to a junior soldier to help with a promotion packet later.

i am a retired major nurse corp, find in not good to not give any the rank the same award if the requirements were met.

I don't find it the case. After over 20 years in the Army, I found senior enlisted had as many awards as senior officers. Most platoon servants have more awards than there platoon leaders. Most 1dt Sergants have more awards than their company commanders. Most CSM's have more awards than the BN Cdr. I don't see the problem.