Mattis Eliminates Long Wait Times For Combat Valor Awards

SFC (Join to see) - Which is my point to begin with. You were retiring and told that only those in 1SG's and above get LOM. In the Army a 1SG would be very lucky to be recommended for an LOM the best he can hope for is an MSM. Which is where the disparity lies.

PO3 Steven Sherrill - No, I can recall vividly one of my Joe's (a PFC) moving under fire to a burning vehicle and pulled out two other SM's before the vehicle exploded. His award I recommended him for was a SS was downgraded to an ARCOM, no "V" device. That is just one instance there are several more.

1LT (Verify To See) - No worries, takes a great deal for me to be insulted. However, as to writing awards I can relate to those that were in need of revision or major editing. This is an area where we both understand quite well. I do understand that an award cannot be declined, but the sad reality is that, I consistently ran into officers who failed to recommend deserving awards for those Soldiers whose performance was deserving. Let me put into context, CPT (I won't mention a name), specifically told me that "you'll have a hard time getting this approved if the officers approving it do not have one." So regardless of how well an award recommendation is written Soldiers are often left out in the cold. I ran into this situation personally at the recommendation for one of my PH's. It was "recommend disapproval" all the way to the CG. The CG, however, approved it and a great many people were pretty upset. And yes, the criteria for a PH is different from that of any other award, but there are some officers who do in fact think in this fashion which again fails to honor the whole premise of why we issue awards for exemplary duty and actions which go above and beyond the average Joe.

You hit the nail on the head. I have even heard to Officers discussing which award they wanted to be put in for. In my time on a LRP team the highest rank was Sgt. and no awards would be approved because no one on the team could put anyone else in for awards. I do agree that the Marines do a better job of policing the issue of metals.