Hmmmm. . . I"m not convinced. Seems like the existing awards had it covered to me.
It's amazing to think that, up until World War One, the award that a U.S. serviceman could get was the Congressional Medal of Honor. That was it. Just that. They started awarding that during the Civil War, and that was the only award. Even the Purple Heart didn't exist until after World War One. WWI US troops received wound stripes.
By World War Two awards had expanded, but to a reasonable level basically. Bronze Stars, Silver Stars, etc., and the Combat Infantry Badge. The first two awards came in around World War One, and were regarded as such significant awards that the Army went back and took quite a few Congressional Medals of Honor away from soldiers who had received them during the Indian Wars, much to their horror. The Combat Infantryman's Badge was so restrictive that at first even medics who served with them couldn't receive it. Cavalrymen, who were mostly deployed as infantrymen during World War Two, couldn't even get it. All were pretty well thought out awards. Those basically carried us through Vietnam. But, for some reason, awards have really expanded since then.
Audie Murphy, who was for many years the highest decorated member of the U.S. Army from World War Two, although at some point in the 70s or 80s, another individual received a late award and surpassed his total. Murphy went from being a private to a captain during the war, and is pictured here wearing his Congressional Medal of Honor and other medals. Think this is a lot of awards? Take a look below.
Even I have a medal, awarded to me for my six years of service in the Army National Guard. It's a Reserve Achievement medal of some type (I'm forgetting the correct name), but basically you get that just for having five or six years of service. It's sort of the Reserve equivalent of the Good Conduct Medal, which in my view is obsolete. That medal came about in an era when quite a few troops could get through a career as a private without particularly good conduct. No more. Now we have an up or out system, and good conduct is part of just staying in. There's really no reason to even have those medals anymore. Your good conduct is implied by your remaining in the service, or your Honorable Discharge is proof of it when you get out.
My view of this topic includes ribbons as well. I have an Army Service Ribbon, which is awarded to you simply for getting through basic training. Does that make sense? Seems to me getting to wear the uniform implies that you got through basic training. And I qualify for an Army Reserve Overseas Service Ribbon. That one is just for serving in an overseas training mission. I went to South Korea. But, once again, I was ordered to do that. That wouldn't seem to qualify me for a ribbon. And should I get to wear a ribbon for going to South Korea when Regular Army troops just were allowed to wear overseas service stripes? That doesn't make very much sense to me.
All this may not mean much to average people, but in my view the endless creation of ribbons and awards cheapens them all. All the way up through at least the Vietnam War, ribbons and rewards really meant something. Now, when a medal is created especially for a class of soldier who isn't really in harm's way, that's much less the case, particularly when that new award takes priority over some of the older, combat awards.
General of the Armies John J. Pershing. Pershing is the second highest ranking U.S. officer of all time, ranking just below, in a technical sense, George Washington but above the various Generals of the Army of World War Two, such as Eisenhower. Note how he only has a few ribbons even though he was in the Army from 1886 until 1924. He saw service during the Indian Wars, the Spanish American War, and World War One.
General David Petreaus. Petreaus retired as a General (the rank, ie., just above Lieutenant General and just below General of the Army, a rank that nobody has been promoted to since the 1950s). He entered active service in the Army in 1974, and therefore was in during both wars with Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. Granted, that's real service. . . but doesn't the ribbon volume seem a bit excessive in comparison to Pershing?
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