T1B

What is the highest military decoration you or a family member have attained.

You can go as far back as your grandparents.

My grandfather earned a Bronze Star with 'V' device, the CIB and one of the few to have both Pacific and European Campaign ribbons in WW2.

I have the Army Achievement Medal with oak leaf cluster and Southwest Asia Campaign Ribbon with two stars. My dad (another ADA pogue) has a Meritorious Service Medal and Army Commendation with oak leaf cluster.

My dad served in the Phillipines as an amphibian tractor driver with the 672nd Amphibious bn in WWII. He played a small roll in The Raid At Los Banos as one of the drivers of the rescue vehicles that ferried the prisoners to safety. Considered to be one of the most successful raids in modern military history. I don't know if my dad got a medal for that but it's in the history books.

Don't be shy, Barf. You probably got something besides the clap from Vietnam.

mvscal wrote:Don't be shy, Barf. You probably got something besides the clap from Vietnam.

i thought we did this not long ago and you complimented me on doing what i had to do while keeping my head down.

I don't recall if we did. You have to have a CIB at least.

complimented me on doing what i had to do while keeping my head down.

- Mrs. Vogel

haha poptard

According to my DD214, I received a Humanitarian Service Medal (for filling sandbags in SLC after a flood, although I never filled one), Good Conduct Medal w/ 1 Oak Leaf Cluster, Outstanding Unit Award, Overseas Service Short Ribbon, Longevity Service Award Ribbon, Training Ribbon.

Basically, nothing.

My DD214 shows I had an honorable discharge.

First place medal for the 100 meter freestyle in the 1995 Las Vegas Corporate Challenge.

Honorable discharge and an Article 15. Do they count ?

Father, bronze star with V device. He was put in for the Silver Star for actions during an attempted fragging of a senior officer in the battalion messhall where a hand grenade was thrown in during the evening meal. My dad flipped over a table to get at the 'nade, grabbed it, and threw it out an open window from his knees. It exploded in an airburst moments after it cleared the window and injured a cook who was outside.

He told us later when he came home that it was entirely instinctive, no heroics intended at the time and that everything slowed down to quarter speed. He saw the grenade bounce, and then roll under the table next to his, and hit the deck to grab it. Guys later said he pushed his chair back, flipped the table over which stopped the motion of the grenade, dove next to it, and chucked the thing in one fluid movement out the window about 5 feet away.

Turned out that the soldier who pulled the pin on it was on a bad trip from some acid he took and wasn't aware of what he had done after they sorted everything out.

I distinctly remember my mom being pissed at my dad for pulling a stunt like that.

mvscal wrote:I don't recall if we did. You have to have a CIB at least.

I have the standard array of survivor medals from Vietnam service. CIB after a couple months, Army Commendation Medal - meritorious after four months, Bronze Star - meritorious after eight months. No "V" devices. Also was awarded the Air Medal for meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight. A hot LZ April 13th 1969. I was 'awarded' the rank of sergeant E-5 in march 69 thru a blank allocation (no testing neccessary). Served a full 365 tour 7/19/68 to 7/19/69 and watched the first lunar landing on tv my first full day back in the world :D

One NAM (navy achievement medal). I'd like to say i did something worthwhile to earn it, but, it was mostly for taking part in 2 boondoggles to pearl harbor. somebody in the navy should have been court martialed for that shameless waste of tax dollars.

Other than the standard rubberstamp warzone stuff, I received the Navy/Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal and the Secretary of Energy Conservation Award.

My ship received the Conservation Award because we got bored on a WestPac tour and began charting fuel consumption and equipment configurations. Hardly rocket science, but no one had ever bothered before. Over the course of the WestPac we saved millions of gallons of fuel.

I never served, but I regularly protested the Viet Nam War. I did have a discharge. I’m pretty sure it came from the hot little blond with the big tits.

Goober McTuber wrote:I did have a discharge. I’m pretty sure it came from the hot little blond with the big tits.

Sounds dishonorable.

Medals and decorations are nice, but all 3 of the boys in or were in the Marine Corps say the awards and shit are complete bullshit.

Not demeaning any of your awards for what ever, but serving in a combat zone with no award, getting shot at and all seems to say more than the awards and cabbage to wear.

Thank you to each of the veterans on here for your service, I am not one of them. Just your service is more than my partying ass did back in days when Nam was winding down. My father went ashore at Normandy, got shot at, and lived and came home. He had a few of the usual awards and ribbons, but was just glad to get home alive.

We have a whole new generation of veterans these days, a lot smaller in numbers but not in importance.

Derron wrote:Medals and decorations are nice, but all 3 of the boys in or were in the Marine Corps say the awards and shit are complete bullshit.

Not demeaning any of your awards for what ever, but serving in a combat zone with no award, getting shot at and all seems to say more than the awards and cabbage to wear.

If you see an Army troop in Class A, you can tell at a glance if he's been in combat, where, with whom and for how long.

The troops know which awards, badges or patches are gimmes and which ones deserve genuine respect. To say that they're all complete bullshit is...well, complete bullshit and sounds more like sour grapes to me.

Not to say that politics doesn't enter into it. Medal inflation indexed to pay grade is no recent phenomenon.

Whatyoutalkinaboutmvscal??

mvscal wrote:

Derron wrote:Medals and decorations are nice, but all 3 of the boys in or were in the Marine Corps say the awards and shit are complete bullshit.

Not demeaning any of your awards for what ever, but serving in a combat zone with no award, getting shot at and all seems to say more than the awards and cabbage to wear.

If you see an Army troop in Class A, you can tell at a glance if he's been in combat, where, with whom and for how long.

The troops know which awards, badges or patches are gimmes and which ones deserve genuine respect. To say that they're all complete bullshit is...well, complete bullshit and sounds more like sour grapes to me.

Not to say that politics doesn't enter into it. Medal inflation indexed to pay grade is no recent phenomenon.

rack, especially the part about medal inflation indexed to pay grade. the way it works in my reserve unit is e-6 below, do a decent job and they'll jam a NAM up your ass at some point. chiefs and officers, a NAM's pretty much an insult. they get navy coms for having a pulse. and the write ups on them....it's all you can do to keep from busting out laughing as they read off how lt cmdr bob did something and saved the navy half a million bucks...as a reservist. yeah, sure he did, skippy.

if you see an e-6 or below wearing a com, odds are he probably did do something worthy, or maybe he justs sucks the cock very well. if you see a senior chief or higher and he doesn't have a com, he's either unlucky or doesn't suck cock very well, or is a shitbag.

we have a young kid in my unit that just got back from playing prison guard in some shithole in iraq for the army. he's a second class (e-5) and the fukker actually managed to get an army com. he's a good kid, with a good attitude, but, easily the most full of shit person i ever met in my life. any way rack him.

and derron, i'd asy your draft dodging ass made up for your lack of service by raising 3 jarheads. rack you and them and semper fi.

smackaholic wrote: he's a second class (e-5) and the fukker actually managed to get an army com. he's a good kid, with a good attitude, but, easily the most full of shit person i ever met in my life. any way rack him.

That's a pretty standard award for an E5 in the Army. Unless you were a total fuckup after we got back from Desert Storm, the lower enlisted got AAMs, team chiefs (E5) and section sgts. (E6) got ARCOMs and platoon sgts got MSMs or Bronze Stars.

i think the army might be a little looser with their hardware than the navy. or it could have been that you were coming back from an actual no shit shooting war (contrary to what colonel let's turd says). I would suspect that the medals flow a little more freely if the bullets are flying as well, which is as it should be. an e-5 that has had bullets whizzing over his dome rates a com over some LT that saved the DoD an imaginary 200K somewhere, imo.

smackaholic wrote: an e-5 that has had bullets whizzing over his dome rates a com over some LT that saved the DoD an imaginary 200K somewhere, imo.

Yeah, but the E3 in the seat next to him gets an AAM for those same bullets whizzing over his dome.

It's all about politics, points and promotions. The difference between a Bronze Star with 'V' device and a DSC could very well boil down to how well connected your CO is or his more likely. I understood that and didn't really care since I had no intention of reupping.

To illustrate mvscal's point, I was issued the National Defense Medal on day one of bootcamp, simply for being on active duty during wartime.

Yippee.

I'd like to point out that I was drafted in feb 68 and resigned myself to make the best of a bad situation. I feel I did exactly that and got an early out to attend college after 22 months service.

i wish we could go back to the good old days when most sailors left boot camp with NO medals.

this is as it should be. you are a fukking boot, you don't deserve a medal. we used to make fun of the other services who even then gave their boots something to wear on their chest.

another thing i don't get is medal ranking. i have a MUC (meritorious unit citation) which i received on active duty for being a member of the crew fo the JFK. A fukking geedunk medal if ever there was one, yet it rates higher than my good conduct and my sea service.

that's bullshit.

i earned the GC for 4 years of not getting caught doing anythin bad and my sea services for two med cruises. these both should rate higher than a fukking "i was there" bullshit medal. another one i don't get are sharpshooter ribbons. they are at the bottom of the rankings below a long list of shit medals. they should be high because you actually gotta fukkin' accomplish a defined goal to get them, not suck your chief's cahk.

What's his forty time?

-Alcula

Damn, he available?

Chris Pronger there shoulda never dropped the gloves.

Purple Heart , me , in Operation Just Cause. I'm still taking shit about it.

LK Pick jokes. Is that cool? Is that still cool?

upstart wrote:Purple Heart , me , in Operation Just Cause. I'm still taking shit about it.

Taking shit about it? Why? Did you get shot in the ass?

BSmack wrote:

upstart wrote:Purple Heart , me , in Operation Just Cause. I'm still taking shit about it.

Taking shit about it? Why? Did you get shot in the ass?

Probably because that makes him one of the 3 guys to get injured in OJC.

Don't matter -- RACK all the vets regardless.

upstart wrote:Purple Heart , me , in Operation Just Cause. I'm still taking shit about it.

That was a cool operation getting rid of some panamanian shitballs and there was alot more than 3 wounded of course. Anyone that finds themself in harms way serving thier country deserves a medal. Congratulations on that Purple Heart. Nice thing to have.

BarFlie wrote:Anyone that finds themself in harms way serving thier country deserves a medal.

Grammar finds itself in harm's way on your keyboard.

Martyred wrote:

BarFlie wrote:Anyone that finds themself in harms way serving thier country deserves a medal.

Grammar finds itself in harm's way on your keyboard.

Nice.