Why don't officers wear marksmanship badges?

I really don't care if they do or not. I do care if they wear it and didnt earn it.

This retired Major took pride in wearing his expert rifle and pistol badges (year after year still couldn’t do as well with the M-60 and grenade though).

Good Info. Thanks.

There are two kinds of people in the military…those who like to shoot and those who don’t like to. Those who like to shoot generally shoot pretty well, are full of pride of their shooting ability, and clean their assigned weapon to accepted standards or better without having to be reprimanded. Those who don’t like to shoot are hairballs regardless to rank, try to get an elnisted person to clean their assigned weapon and the whole nine yards.I know this because I love shooting and have always asked to shoot one of the .45s just because I have carried one from time to time for convienece along with my camera gear. Not an assigned .45 but just any one that is not assigned that is out at the range, a dry fire for me…and I shoot very well. I have been asked by my officers to clean theirs on occasion. I pleaded non involvement to servitude and explained I had a .45 and an M16 to care for and he had only a tiny .45. I have seen how poorly many offices shoot when I am waiting to shoot. Some are really fantastic, too, and proud of their marksmanship…those are the ones I always wanted to be around if the balloon went up. So, that is why I think they don’t wear badges. It could be embarrassing to some….especially if they were in the fraternity with the ring
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After taking a cursory tour of the responses, I didn’t find a Naval Officer (or an Enlisted) addressing the fact that one will find rifle and pistol ribbons on basically all those who qualified Os and Es, and of course, wear the associated medals in full dress. Those devices will indicate marksman, sharpshooter and expert with the highest attained using attached letters. All ribbons and medals (some ribbons are not “medaled”) carryover when one moves from E to O.

Humorously, while deployed to Desert Storm, my wife (then an O-4) got pulled into a discussion re. the firearms qualifications when a guy made a disparaging remark about women not being able to qual. She got a copy of a page from her service jacket and handed it to the idiotic trog. She’s qualed Expert in both. He fully earned the HUYA award that day. I knew the E-8 Gunners-mate who qualified her. It certainly wasn’t just a lark on the range. Now retired, we both had earned the rifle and pistol Expert quals on active duty.

If I earned the markmanship badges the I would wear the regardless of rank.

I first served four years as an enlisted soldier and NCO. I qualified Expert with the M-16 rifle and 9 mm pistol. I also qualified with the German 9 mm pistol, G-3 7.62 rifle and MG-1 machine gun. After commissioning I initially wore my marksmanship badges but caught some flak for it. My fellow lieutenants eventually convinced me to not wear them. I felt then, and still do to some extent, that showing my soldiers that I had qualified well to fire my weapon would not be a bad thing.

I wore a bronze excellence in competition medal for pistol that I earned as an officer. I was the only person in my unit(s) that ever had one. My additional duty for years was to run weapons ranges. I was a shooter and still am.

In the Marine Corps they have to.

Here's a somewhat related question. Can Marine Corps shooting badges be worn on the Army uniform by prior service Marines who are now Soldiers?