Most folks aren't complaining about IAs not being fair; it's that they're unpredictably assigned, often on very short notice (I had two weeks) and for jobs we're not really trained to do. Anyway.
Your community generally has little to do with what you do on your IA. The billets sometimes specify a designator or community (e.g., a lot of Prowler bubbas are doing battalion EWO tours), but most of the time it just specifies a paygrade.
Everyone's trained by the Army for at least a couple of weeks, but you may or may not be working with the Army in-theater. Or if you are, it's as part of a joint command, not necessarily an Army command. It has been an education; I've worked with the Marines and AF a lot before, but this has been my first real exposure to the Army and how it does things. Generally favorable, mostly just different.
The awards thing is in flux. At first it was the typical staff drone response "no you can't wear Army decorations, uniform regs don't allow it". Finally someone pointed out this was rather stupid. You can wear any and all medals/ribbons you've been awarded on an IA. There has been a lot of discussion about the Combat Action Badge, and I don't know where it stands now. The Army has awarded them to Sailors assigned to Army units, but whether the Navy allows them to be worn, I'm not sure.
