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Are individual awards getting watered down (ie a NAM for a Det)?

Current command will give a NAM EOT to anyone that hasn't failed a PRT or gone to mast. It effectively eliminates personal awards/medals as a method to truly recognize noteworthy and commendable actions unless we want to start handing out COMs to E-5s. Fortunately it hasn't come to that.

I'm sure the same sentiment applies to higher awards. If the C-130 guy gets a DFC, then now the DFC bar is lowered and the guy with an air-air kill rates a silver star or navy cross, etc.
 
It’s hard to tell what exactly happened because the article is scant on details. I’d be curious to read the mishap report for more details but for anyone who flies big props, a malfunction like that is no joke. Plus, if they were doing a low level that would compound the situation. Don’t forget, the Herc that crashed a couple years ago did so by throwing a blade through the fuselage and essentially cut the bird in half.
 
The guys who ditched the P-3 off Masirah, Oman got DFCs. That was caused by a thrown prop blade too. But it caused so much damage it was a no engines, no hydraulics dead stick glide to the water. The DFCs were well deserved.
 
Treetop Flyer said:
Seems like what an air medal is for. But it seems like I see a lot more AF guys with DFC’s than Navy or Marines.
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The Coasties were pretty liberal about handing them out at least a few years ago. A Whidbey SAR guy I was deployed with went on a rant about how they did some of the same SAR missions as some Coasties down south and got no medals but the Coasties got DFC's. He wasn't bitter about not getting anything , he thought what they did wasn't all that special, he was derisive of how the Coasties got theirs.

azguy said:
I'm sure the same sentiment applies to higher awards. If the C-130 guy gets a DFC, then now the DFC bar is lowered and the guy with an air-air kill rates a silver star or navy cross, etc.
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The criteria for combat valor medals has gone up and down through the years, with many Vietnam-era air-to-air kills rating a Silver Star but most, not all though, Navy air-to-air kills since have rated DFC's. In WWII in some theaters and by some services DFC's were awarded like Strike/Flight Air Medals for a aviators who flew whatever the required number of missions. A little over 5 years later and the 'rule of thumb' late in the Korea War for a Navy aviator to rate a DFC was destroying a train, by then a pretty hard thing to do.

Al that said, from what the USAF has generally been more liberal than the Navy or Marines in handing out DFC's the last ~20 years.
 
Flash said:
A little over 5 years later and the 'rule of thumb' late in the Korea War for a Navy aviator to rate a DFC was destroying a train, by then a pretty hard thing to do.
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My grandfather got a DFC in Korea for that very thing, he was the rear gunner on an A-26. I have his personal notebook of his flights in Korea. Along with the citation, it sounds like it was a ‘sporty’ night for that crew.
 
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