Awards and Decs

I spent a good long time on the phone with SN1 last evening and am pleased to report he's back on US soil, safe and sound.  He'll be doin' those things one usually does at the end of a deployment today and tomorrow and then he flies into P-Ville (well, Lubbock, actually) Wednesday afternoon for a brief two-day leave.  Rest assured there will be celebratory beer-drinkin' and cigar smokin' in the near future.

So... part and parcel of our discussions last evening revolved around the award of decorations and medals for war-zone tours these days.  I won't go into detail in this space as far as Buck is concerned, except to say his commander is on a personal sort of mission to reverse the medal-creep trend which is polluting the Air Force.  This is a Great Good Thing in the macro sense yet has obvious impact on the troops in the Good Colonel's charge.  Which is to say that ALL commanders need to sign on to the effort, not just some... if stopping the medal-creep is worthwhile.  And it is.

Which brings up a war story, of sorts, that I related to Buck last evening.  It was usual and customary back in the day...we're talking over 25 years ago... to receive an award upon completing a tour of duty and moving on to one's next assignment... assuming, of course, that you'd actually done something to merit an award.  And that's still the practice in Today's Modern Air Force, which is why the subject of awards and decs came up last evening.  

So... there I was... winding down my penultimate USAF assignment at lovely RAF Uxbridge, with orders in hand for Tinker AFB, OK.  My commander told me he was putting me in for a Meritorious Service Medal (MSM) and needed the usual, customary, and reasonable write-up concerning my glorious achievements... such as they were... while serving as his Chief of Programs.  I told him I would get right on it and had a one page list of about 12 bullet points on his desk in about an hour's time.

"Not good enough" sez the Good Major.

"What do you want?" sez I, in reply.

"I want the citation write-up... the whole nine yards" sez he.

"Ummm... isn't that YOUR job?" sez I.

"Not if you want the medal" sez he.

Well.  To cut to the chase:  I didn't want it that bad and I never provided the citation.  I also didn't get the medal.  As a matter of fact I didn't get any-goddamned-thing out of that assignment, which pissed me off no small amount.  My point was this:  I was still naïve enough to think gentlemen did NOT toot their own horn, ever.  And I stood by my principles.

Fast forward about six or eight months... I'm at my new assignment at Tinker AFB and was called into the Chief's office for a little chat.  "So tell me, Buck... why didn't you get a medal out of Uxbridge?"  I related the whole ugly story to the Chief who sat there and listened politely.  When I was finished he looked at me and said "You dumb-ass.  You might as well put your papers in, you're done."  This coming just after I had been passed over for SMSgt (E-8) for the first time... and which the Chief believed was, in part, because of no dec out of my last assignment.  I mulled that lil conversation over for a while and submitted my retirement papers a few months later.  The Chief was right:  I was done.

So.  Buck got a good laugh out of the story and noted that things hadn't changed one bit in the intervening 25 years or so.  As for me... I learned that lesson and NEVER missed an opportunity to toot my own horn during my civilian career.  When asked and when required, of course.  There ARE limits.

Oh.  I did get my MSM eventually... when I retired.

I didn't write the citation, either.