Creeping rackism --
In the military, your "rack" is the collection of ribbons you wear on dress uniforms representing medals or awards earned during service. Generally, the longer you have been in active service and the more interesting places you have gone, the more ribbons you walk away with. I noticed while watching the inaugural parade today that various senior officers who were having short conversations with Trump while units from their respective services were marching by were really loaded down. From looking at some of those racks, we are either going to have to start using smaller ribbons or get bigger generals.
I recently received my father's collection of medals and ribbons earned during his service in USMC in WW2 and 20+ years in the NG and reserves. I saw that he had one I didn't understand (China Service, and I don't think he ever got into China during the war) and missing one he should have had (Philippine Liberation). But sometimes it takes years to get the awards out to the troops, and sometimes the rules change or new medals are created with backdated eligibility. In my own case, I left the Navy after just short of 8 years with two ribbons on my dress blues - a National Defense Service Medal (which everyone received at boot camp in my day) and a Good Conduct Medal (no documented trouble for 4 years). Since then I have found that the two days in April 75 during Operation Frequent Wind (evacuation of South Vietnam) merited me to wear three more - a Navy Unit Commendation, Armed Forces Expeditionary, and Humanitarian Service. Let me do the math -- 7 years, 9 months, 2 days for 2 medals, then add three more for 2 of those days. And since I transferred out of the squadron about a year later, and got out of the Navy a few months after that, the paperwork for the medals never caught up with me.
But wait - there's more. Since the NDSM eligibility period expired in August 74 because we weren't fighting in the VN neighborhood anymore, the Navy created a Naval Sea Deployment Service award in 1980 (for a 90-day or more deployment), but backdated the eligibility to Aug 1974 - so there's another. We're up to six from my original two.
And then I found out today that Congress has been trying for years to create a Cold War Victory Medal for all veterans and current military who served between 1946 and 1990 or so, but DOD and President have resisted for political reasons. It's real enough that some state National Guard commands have authorized it (like Alaska and Louisiana), so if it gets final approval (perhaps as part of Make Our Military Great Again), I'll be up to 7.
In the military, your "rack" is the collection of ribbons you wear on dress uniforms representing medals or awards earned during service. Generally, the longer you have been in active service and the more interesting places you have gone, the more ribbons you walk away with. I noticed while watching the inaugural parade today that various senior officers who were having short conversations with Trump while units from their respective services were marching by were really loaded down. From looking at some of those racks, we are either going to have to start using smaller ribbons or get bigger generals.
I recently received my father's collection of medals and ribbons earned during his service in USMC in WW2 and 20+ years in the NG and reserves. I saw that he had one I didn't understand (China Service, and I don't think he ever got into China during the war) and missing one he should have had (Philippine Liberation). But sometimes it takes years to get the awards out to the troops, and sometimes the rules change or new medals are created with backdated eligibility. In my own case, I left the Navy after just short of 8 years with two ribbons on my dress blues - a National Defense Service Medal (which everyone received at boot camp in my day) and a Good Conduct Medal (no documented trouble for 4 years). Since then I have found that the two days in April 75 during Operation Frequent Wind (evacuation of South Vietnam) merited me to wear three more - a Navy Unit Commendation, Armed Forces Expeditionary, and Humanitarian Service. Let me do the math -- 7 years, 9 months, 2 days for 2 medals, then add three more for 2 of those days. And since I transferred out of the squadron about a year later, and got out of the Navy a few months after that, the paperwork for the medals never caught up with me.
But wait - there's more. Since the NDSM eligibility period expired in August 74 because we weren't fighting in the VN neighborhood anymore, the Navy created a Naval Sea Deployment Service award in 1980 (for a 90-day or more deployment), but backdated the eligibility to Aug 1974 - so there's another. We're up to six from my original two.
And then I found out today that Congress has been trying for years to create a Cold War Victory Medal for all veterans and current military who served between 1946 and 1990 or so, but DOD and President have resisted for political reasons. It's real enough that some state National Guard commands have authorized it (like Alaska and Louisiana), so if it gets final approval (perhaps as part of Make Our Military Great Again), I'll be up to 7.
