Originally Posted by RAInf

You American Cadets with all those ribbons go about looking like bloody war heroes. In Australian cadets they don't get anything like that.

I, for one, would prefer our organizations to be like that. When I first joined I was like yay ribbson; now I hate those that are given for doing my job, which, imho, is any medal/ribbon out there.

well navy dont feel to bad i just got back from my military ball and im the unarmed NCO and i DIDNT even get a drill team ribbon

What's your excuse,armless?

most likely grades and the fact i could only go to 1 comp becuz my sgt kept cancleing the ones i could go to and when i couldnt go we actualy went to the comp but i was at practice all year and my friend who was on color gaurd and also only went to 1 comp and didnt do the football games and all that got her color gaurd ribbon and its freaking stupid how that works

Sad to see how some of you completely disregarded Doody's great post and still complain about little chest candy that doesn't mean anything. You kids have a very long road ahead of you, hopefully your attitudes will change when you're older, more mature and have less of a sense of entitlement.

Originally Posted by armlesscadet

most likely grades and the fact i could only go to 1 comp becuz my sgt kept cancleing the ones i could go to and when i couldnt go we actualy went to the comp but i was at practice all year and my friend who was on color gaurd and also only went to 1 comp and didnt do the football games and all that got her color gaurd ribbon and its freaking stupid how that works

I see that is what is propably going to happen to me next year,but maybe I can ask my band teacher to go with the NJROTC unite one football game and with the band on the next football game.

I STILL don't see why you're so blind and stupid to outright disregard other posts and flat out ADMIT that you're going to try and do extras for medals.

Originally Posted by Doody

I hope I do not ruffle anyone's feathers with my opinions

I do see whining about not getting any candy for your uniform to be becoming of a good soldier. In my opinion, you do your job. If you choose to go above and beyond, that's up to you. But to do hard work with the expectation of getting an award is rather distaseful. I would advise you to read the recent book detailing the lives of soldiers who earned the Medal of Honor. A common characteristic shared by all of them is a sense that they did nothing that anyone esle had done. One guy in the Korean War thought he was getting court martialed when he was called into see some officers after he was no longer a POW.

As for other people getting awards that don't deserve it, welcome to life and the military. How many times have you witnessed someone getting an award that did not deserve it? I worked my butt off on setting up the 55th Anniversery of the 101st dropping into Normandy dinning out for 30 days. A freind of mine came in the night before and wrote the names of VIPs on little name cards for the tables. He gets an AAM and I got jack. That senario is repeated time and time again in the military. As I said, welcome to life.

Lastly, No offense to JROTC, but I firmly believe that they give out too many awards. Last year I was involved with a veterans day parade. One of the high school ROTC groups were there. The leader of them had more awards than Patton. I have never seen so many awards hanging off that guys uniforms. Every soldier standing in our formation shook their heads.

For me, Doody says it all.
Stop your whining and grow up!

Or, to put it another way:

Medals are AWARDS not REWARDS.

An Award is something that you'll get as recognition for hard work and dedication. It's something that's not there as motivation or something you should be purposely sucking up for. It is something you CAN be given, not something you deserve. Example: Medals

A Reward is something you get for doing your job properly, and like you were supposed to. Example: Free Time for passing your bunk inspection.

The two are different. If medals come down to being a Reward when they should be an Award, then the cadet program is going down with it.

Last year it was a main goal of mine to get ribbons, this year, i have turned down 3 awards, because it isnt worth it. Its just another thing to put on my uniform, another thing to possibly get marked off for on inspection. I just do what im told, or get lower ranking men to do it. Depends on the task.