NATO ISAF Medal Clasp?

[paulmkrueger]

I was wondering if anyone knew what the regulation was for wearing the ISAF clasp on the NATO Non-Art 5 Medal? When I was in Afghanistan, the medal that was issued to me had the ISAF clasp, but I have never actually seen anyone wear it with full dress medals. Are we authorized to wear the clasp or not? Thanks in advance.

 

[Uncle Fester]

You can; not many bother.

 

[Flash]

You can; not many bother.

Probably becasue we are so unfamiliar with it, clasps on medals is originally a British thing that carried over to much of the Commonwealth but not to us with few exceptions. I believe you actually would be out of uniform if you did not wear the clasp but like campaign stars on the Iraq and Afghanistan campaign medals, at least one campaign star is required on both and a ribbon/medal without one is improper, a lot of folks just ignore that reg.

EDIT: After actually looking up the appropriate instruction, SECNAVINST 1650.1H, we are NOT authorized to wear the clasp (pages 7-7 to 7-8). Too bad, I think it looks cool.

 

[Uncle Fester]

Really? Huh. We dug into the regs during my last cruise trying to figure out what paperwork to do. Discovered there's at least 31 flavors of the NATO medal; as long as you get the ISAF-or-not right, no one cares. The clasp probably also falls under the "technically out of regs but who cares?" clause.

 

[paulmkrueger]

Probably becasue we are so unfamiliar with it, clasps on medals is originally a British thing that carried over to much of the Commonwealth but not to us with few exceptions. I believe you actually would be out of uniform if you did not wear the clasp but like campaign stars on the Iraq and Afghanistan campaign medals, at least one campaign star is required on both and a ribbon/medal without one is improper, a lot of folks just ignore that reg.

EDIT: After actually looking up the appropriate instruction, SECNAVINST 1650.1H, we are NOT authorized to wear the clasp (pages 7-7 to 7-8). Too bad, I think it looks cool.

Thanks for the info. Just wanted to make sure