Why are officers recognized with awards more than enlisted?

Well I'm a retired MSG and I did receive a ACM at one time, maybe one before that, either that or someone made an error because my Certificate said 2nd award. Anyway the AAM when it first came it was an easy for the Cmdr to recognize Enlisted without trying to reach a higher standard for the ACM. Myself I received 3 AAM in my last three years and one was given to me in recognition of running post support with only half the Battalion and running my (SMG position) S-3 shop and no officers. and then a MSM when I retired.

It appears your real questions is why are you not receiving awards? Focusing on why someone else is receiving military decorations is not the direction you should go in. Obviously someone recognized your potential and your job performance, because you indicate that you will be promoted to SSGT - Congratulations. As far as other recognitions, they usually come w/ time accomplishing critical assignments, exceeding military physical standards, and always looking sharp.

This is my take on ur question. The Army is so geared towards leadership they award the officers more. And plus enlisted don't care as much about awards like officers do. We like the fight and getting dirty officers just lead.
That's my 2 cents.

I know I’m very late but I have a crazy story. I had a 2LT in Kuwait who dodged everything by staying in his air conditioned room. He wouldn’t answer the door when someone knocked and never got a hint of a tan. The one time he did roll out was for security at port. His failure to acclimate made him a heat casualty that day. As for the platoon, the PSG, a squad leader, and a SPC (yep) split out the PL duties somewhat equally and ensure mission success.
The PSG and SL didn’t give two shits about awards but did work together on the citation for the SPC. When time came to present awards, that citation was read off but the soldier receiving it was the lazy ass PL. He typed it up, put his name, then had another officer sign. He then did another citation soldier for whom the original was written. The lieutenant didn’t want to be outshined by a SPC.

There are a lot of interesting thoughts in the comments. As someone who had experience in both the Army and Air Force awards systems, I have opinions and thoughts as well regarding this issue. To start, I will say that I also believe there are real flaws and inequities in the types and amounts of awards given to officers and enlisted.

Before I say what I think may contribute to it or how we might address it, I should first say that the comment that there are a lot of officers responding to reasons why officers get more or better awards implies that officers should have no right to an opinion on this issue, and/or implies that all officers would only advocate to continue a system that seems to benefit us. If that's what is meant by that comment, it is unfair, ignorant of the issues involved, and stereotypes officers.

I would like to see actual stats on the types and amounts of awards, but on the surface I think the idea that officers generally get awardsore often is probably valid. I think one big culprit is the concept of end of tour or PCS awards. In most services, from what I can tell, existed are often allowed to stay in one unit and/or location for many years longer than officers. Officers, by nature of the roles and positions they must fill, rotate more often in general. Officers normally change positions every 1 to 3 years. For an officer to remain in one position for 3 years often poses a problem for their future promotions. So officers will end up getting more PCS awards because they rotate more often. I have known enlisted who have stayed in the same unit for 6 or 7 years, and because they didn't rotate combined with a chain of command who doesn't recognize awards for specific achievements or projects (including the idea of impact awards), those people rarely saw awards.

Comvine that with chains of Command who are so stuck on the PCS award idea that they would rather give a "letter of continuity" to a person's next unit if that person were PCa'ing instead of PCS'ing. I ran into this issue both as a junior and a senior officer. As a lieutenant I served 2 full years as a Platoon Leader, accomplishing some strong achievements and recognition with my team as a "best in USAREUR" platoon in our field by inspectors. Yet when I moved to another unit but stayed locally after 2 years, since I wasn't PCS'ing, I only got a letter toward my next PCS award from next unit. The very flawed concept and explanation was that it will make next award stronger and net me an even higher award. I knew when that was said.it was a cop out. In.my next unit I accomplished some even stronger achievements, garnering coins from 2 and 3 star leaders and implementation of a practice I started locally to be done across USAREUR. When it was time to PCS, my boss actually put me in for a Meritorious Service Medal as a 1LT given the strength of what I'd done across those 3 years in 2 roles with no recognition so far. The commander downgraded it to a Commendation with a rationale that it would never get approved for a 1LT, especially since I didn't have any other awards yet. So not getting a previous award actually hurt me for future awards. The letter of continuity did nothing, and I got the same award for 3 years that I would have gotten for both the 1 and 2 year roles. I explain to say that I think that's the kind of thing that happens a lot to enlisted, especially of they are not completely PCS'ing. Commanders will, at best, except 8n rare circumstances, consider your work done for anyone other than their unit. I always recommend to award people now for what they've done for you, even if it's only an acheivent medal, because you can't guarantee anyone will recognize that person's contributions later. (In my first unit I actually wrote up award ecommendations for several of my troops for a project that went exceptionally well, but my commander refused to accept them because they were either too junior or because it wasn't time for their PCS. He of course used this accomplishment in his own write up for his PCS award.) (I had the PCA letter of continuity thing happen to me again even as a Lt Col in the AF.)

I also believe that we put arbitrary grade restrictions on medals that are not actually in the regulations. Like you can't get a Meritorious Service Medal until you are a Captain or Major, or for enlisted until you are a SNCO. These ideas really hurt people, enlisted even more so. The fact is most award criteria in all services have a statement of "when compared to others with like rank and responsibility". If this were applied better, more enlisted would receive awards when they truly shine. Applying this better should actually result in a situation where an enlistedight even get a higher award than an officer for the same action. Which would make sense. Someone commented on the idea that an officer got a higher award than an enlisted for doing the exact same work, and it was because they were an officer. This would flip that. If an O-3 and an E-5 did the exact same action, the E-5 ought to be getting the higher award because the action was further outside of the expected actions for an E-5 but perhaps more commonly expected for an O-3. Not providing a specific scenario doesn't help the argument, but I think most will understand what I'm getting at. Why can't junior enlisted get a Commendation or an MSM? If they actually did something that should only be expected of a SNCO or a FGO, then why shouldn't they get recognized with a higher award for doing something beyond "those with like rank and responsibility"? So I think that misapplication of criteria is also to blame for the disparity.

The other thing I think is I think is problem is getting points for medals on enlisted promotion scores. Getting a Medal is so far out of their ability to control, no matter how great a job they have done, that I think it unfairly imbalances promotion scores for people who have just had commanders with bad awards philosophies.

I think those are 3 major reasons we have awards issues, and often affects officers as well. The AF also had a worse system of award authority level than the Army. Even as a Squadron Commander in the AF (Battalion level), I did not even have Achievement Medal authority. The AF may have changed that since, but the AF tends to restrict that more for no good reason. I say lower the authority level to Company/O-3 or 4 for Achievement, Battalion/O-5 for Commendation, and Brigade/O-6 for MSM.

The position factor does legitimately play into why officers get higher awards sometimes. The responsibility for leading the efforts, for everything a unit does or fails to do (even if we are talking about non-command positions over teams, sections, etc.) should weigh into the level of award for an officer. Other than, I do think the sheer nature of someone's grade affects the level of the award more than it should and/or in the opposite direction than it should.

Yes, we don't do the job for awards. But I agree with Napoleon, who I believe said something to the effect of putting a little colored ribbon on someone's chest goes a long way in terms of morale and loyalty.

Just my opinions.

I did just under 8 years of active duty before getting out as an E-4(P) due to a change in the rules and a RIF under President Clinton. I messed up my first 2 years in, and paid royal Hades to earn the chance to make it right, but I managed to get 3 different awards during my service (AAM, ARCom, and a Bronze Star during Desert Storm). I don't know about other units, so I'm not going to speculate. I got my fair share, maybe even a little more so. But it seems to me if you're spending energy worrying about the fruit salad someone else is wearing, it's energy you don't have to concentrate on earning your own. I did the job first, and worried about all the other shtuff after the smoke cleared. But I never once asked for or even considered I might get an award for any of it.

It depends on wither they are awards for actually doing something, or an award for being there.
Actual accomplishments, exhibitions of valor and the like are pretty evenly awarded
By the time I retired in 2004, I refused to wear 3/4 of the decorations as they were meaningless.
And no, none of them had the nerve to call me on it either.

Honestly it's part of the culture in the Army to do it... I see a lot of it isn't that big of a deal but to young soldiers grinding out points in the US Army it is a big deal. I'm not saying give them away but enlisted soldiers definitely are not given awards that often. Shouldn't be that hard to look at the facts and maybe take that into consideration next time you see a young enlisted soldier going above and beyond.

During Vietnam, officers scrambled to get the "ticket punched" by being in a combat zone. I honestly don't think there's anything wrong with that - it is afterall a competative profession.
That said, officers also have a LOT more responsibility. If they do their jobs well, and if subordinates don't do anything stupid that gets the officer relieved (at any level), they bear a bigger weight on their shoulders in that respect also. Let's face it, a bad NCO (or junior officer), if not dealt with prmptly, can cost a supervising officer a LOT.
Stands to reason they get more recognition - more responsibility; more recognition, good OR bad.

Any new officer can stand in [overseas country] for 6 months to a year and get a minimum bronze star. The brass likes to act like there are a limited number of ribbons. Good leadership will realize that awards help look after your soldiers and help them get promoted. All of the good units I deployed with gave a mandatory award of some kind to all based on performance and responsibility. You had to really screw up to get nothing and even then you got a COA.