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Overseas Service Ribbon

villanelle

villanelle

Nihongo dame desu
Contributor
It's ribbon rack time in the Villanelle Villa. Queue frustration and confusion. Husband has a question regarding the Overseas Service Ribbon and I suggested you all might be able to help. The instruction is confusing (surprise!).

The language from the Navy Awards instruction is,

"(1) Active Duty Personnel: 12 months of consecutive or accumulated duty at an overseas shore based duty station Initial and Subsequent Awards. Qualifying service performed between 15 August 1974 and 1 January 1979 will be credited only toward the initial award of the ribbon. Subsequent to 1 January 1979, one award is earned for each qualifying period." [Bolding mine.]

So if assigned to an OCONUS base for 27 months, and then another OCONUS base (immediately afterwards, if it matters) for 34 months, how many times does he qualify? IOW, what is a qualifying period--every 12 month period (which would be 5, I guess, assuming the totals and partial periods across different sets of orders count ), or each assignment that is 12 months or more (so 2)?

Votes among his peers are split. Thoughts?
 
Last edited:
Brett327

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Does "qualifying period" refer to consecutive 12 month periods as multiple awards, or does it imply that multiple awards are given for non-consecutive qualifying periods - I.E. multiple awards for multiple tours. I have no OCONUS tour experience, but my conventional wisdom tells me that the Navy isn't giving three awards for a three year tour. So, my answer to your question would be two awards. One for each overseas tour of more than 12 months.
 
C

ChuckM

Well-Known Member
pilot
His online service record may shed some light on this. I want to say when I was digging around in preparation for my O-4 board that I saw multiple iterations of this award for my 36 month tour.

I could be wrong... It's been a couple months since I was looking at it.
 
B

bert

Enjoying the real world
pilot
Contributor
villanelle said:
It's ribbon rack time in the Villanelle Villa. Queue frustration and confusion. Husband has a question regarding the Overseas Service Ribbon and I suggested you all might be able to help. The instruction is confusing (surprise!).

The language from the Navy Awards instruction is,

"(1) Active Duty Personnel: 12 months of consecutive or accumulated duty at an overseas shore based duty station Initial and Subsequent Awards. Qualifying service performed between 15 August 1974 and 1 January 1979 will be credited only toward the initial award of the ribbon. Subsequent to 1 January 1979, one award is earned for each qualifying period." [Bolding mine.]

So if assigned to an OCONUS base for 27 months, and then another OCONUS base (immediately afterwards, if it matters) for 34 months, how many times does he qualify? IOW, what is a qualifying period--every 12 month period (which would be 5, I guess, assuming the totals and partial periods across different sets of orders count ), or each assignment that is 12 months or more (so 2)?

Votes among his peers are split. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

It can also vary by which OCONUS spot you are at in particular - Guam in the 90's arbitrarily deviated from the policy you quote ( and nope - I have no idea why) and awarded sea service deployment ribbons instead. Policy in 7th fleet in the early 2000s was to not allow carry over months from a different 7th Fleet command but it could have changed since then, so you will want to check 7th Fleets's award SOP (1650 I think) or the one from whatever wing owns him.

With all that said, no one will ever care if he has 4 or 5. A board will see he did back to back overseas deployments and either give him credit for two (if they believe in pain points), or punish him for hiding from the real Navy (if they believe that the real Navy only exists in fleet concentration areas).
 
villanelle

villanelle

Nihongo dame desu
Contributor
ChuckM said:
His online service record may shed some light on this. I want to say when I was digging around in preparation for my O-4 board that I saw multiple iterations of this award for my 36 month tour.

I could be wrong... It's been a couple months since I was looking at it.
Click to expand...

He said he did look, and it only showed one, which is clearly (he thinks!) wrong. It didn't count Japan at all.

Thanks all.
 
Flash

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
villanelle said:
..."(1) Active Duty Personnel: 12 months of consecutive or accumulated duty at an overseas shore based duty station Initial and Subsequent Awards. Qualifying service performed between 15 August 1974 and 1 January 1979 will be credited only toward the initial award of the ribbon. Subsequent to 1 January 1979, one award is earned for each qualifying period." [Bolding mine.]

...every 12 month period (which would be 5, I guess, assuming the totals and partial periods across different sets of orders count ), or each assignment that is 12 months or more (so 2)?

Votes among his peers are split. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I think accumulated would be the key word, and he would rate 5.
 
villanelle

villanelle

Nihongo dame desu
Contributor
I think he's submitting the rack order for 5. He's a stickler, so this kind of thing bothers him. I tried to assure him that accidentally wearing too many overseas service ribbons in good faith is a bit different than slapping on an unearned Purple Heart.
 
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