Do medals matter at all to an officer's career?

Some commands are horrible at processing awards. I submitted for a Soldier's Medal (non combat valor) for an NCO of mine that stopped a knife attack on a neighbor 1) Attended to her injuries, 2) Restrained the assailant for police 3) directed others to aid in the situation 4) at great physical risk to himself for injury.

In the packet I had statements from the 1) prosecuting attorney of his actions that led to the successful conviction. 2) A statement from the apartment manager about his actions, and 3) a statement from a neighbor of his actions and the neighbor was a Active Duty USMC Captain.

That award went nowhere, and I submitted it twice under two different BC's and included direct verbal communication about the situation with my BC's. I certainly just didn't leave it with S1 and forgot about it.

This award would have been on par with a Bronze Star with V. So I anticipated resistance to give it to a USAR soldier not on orders and recommended by a 1LT commander, but all the criteria were met and this is exactly what a Soldier Medal is designed for. I even researched situations where a Soldier Medal was awarded and these actions were very much on par and even more impressive than others where lives where saved (CPR aid for example), but risk to self was minimal.

Further, I didn't get an award for my command, my two 1SG's didn't get awards for their time. Awards where submitted, the CSM even hounded me about submitting awards, and still nothing. I left my command with the company at #2 in the BN, and I was rated on my OER as #1 LT in the BN. So it's not without justification. But the right rank for the right award has to put in their CAC and enter their PIN on the DA638 and send send it back to S1 to process and iPerm.

I'm just glad to be where I'm at now.

What I've learned is there needs to be a command culture of PROCESSING AWARDS. Otherwise you hit a brick wall. I literally had an NCO of mine receive TWO ARCOM's for an exercise. These TWO were for the EXACT SAME THING!!!!! I'm sure what happened was the generals in charge of this major exercise were bent on handing out awards. So it was pushed on me to get them submitted before we left for home. Somewhere in there I guess my paperwork ended up at two different approving authorities. As such, two different COL's signed off on an ARCOM for him. This is a year after the fact, and all I could tell him he was one lucky SOB, because I'm not motivated to try and reverse one of them now they both have been iPerm'd and were awarded outside of our Chain of Command. Two ARCOM's two different Order Numbers. DONE DEAL.

**********************
I guess my point is a ribbon racks only impresses those unaware of the culture, and you never truly know the luck a soldier has had in his career in regard to awards.

They matter to an extent. For example, if you leave command with a commendation medal instead of an MSM people will be quick to review your evaluation to see if you did something wrong or performed poorly. When board members (at least in the Army) review promotion files they assign each file a point value (3, 3+, 4, 4+, 5, 5+, 6, 6+) and this is where your file may receive a higher rating during a promotion board if you have “higher” awards than you peers. No don’t get me wrong, what really matters to an officer’s career is well written Evaluations, tough jobs, and your performance in those jobs.

Not officially, but if you have the ribbon rack of a Private, the assumption is that you also share the competence of a Private, and you're going to be judged accordingly.