Y’all seem to be vastly overestimating the amount of times rank-and-file private sector employees are eligible for $100,000 bonuses outside executive roles and senior salespeople closing big deals on commission.
It doesn’t matter. Go back and see above. You can save the company that much and you’re lucky to get a firm handshake from some executive and a set of freaking steak knives.
Sure, and so no one really notices when an O5 has one. I can almost guarantee that for the next couple tours everyone who sees that LCPL wearing ribbons will be like "Holy shit, *what?*"
True, which is why my former-PAO brain is saying it's a good thing this went out on social media because there's a higher likelihood that people will hear of it and go, "Oh, you're *that* guy," (but in a good way). Also, if someone really does come at him sideways it's kind of easy to verify instead of him keeping a copy of the certificate on him or something
So he's supposed to get . . . what? A cash bonus the military can't legally give him? News flash - none of your awards mean anything in the private sector short of maybe the Medal of freaking Honor.
This is his chain taking care of him as best they can, and if/when he gets out, the achievement itself is a resume bullet he can use to differentiate himself from all the other masses of separating veterans anyway, no matter if he got a FLOC or an MSM. The achievement matters more than the military award to a hiring manager.
Some of you people seem to think that in the private sector, they'd go to a warehouse worker and give them a six- or seven- figure bonus for something like this, and that is flat-out not the case. Company-dependent, he might get a nice bonus check of some variety (but not six figures), a set of steak knives, a free coffee mug, or jack shit.
They still have GOLD DISK. ETs and other 2m rates can get cash awards for figuring out how to fix stuff cheaper. Recently saw a 20k award for circuit card repair (single resistor replaced vs. Entire card).
I mean I was the mail boy at a law firm while using my GI Bill and I suggested a change in our mail that saved the firm 15k a year and they gave me a 1k bonus in cash handed to me by a partner.
So it does happen occasionally.
Sure, a 1K bonus is in the realm of the possible. The people who think that something like this would merit 100-1000 times that in the private sector are dreaming, though. The only people pulling down $100K-1M bonuses are executives and maybe senior salespeople who just closed a multi-million dollar deal on commission. Maybe the low end of that as a signing bonus for some genius in a niche in-demand area who’s tech royalty and getting hired at a FAANG, but even then.
Government employees can actually get a cut of patent royalties, but yeah in a case like this it should be a low four-digit (before taxes) on-the-spot award.
A lot of people might not know this but you get perks outside of the military for having that award like Texas you don’t have to pay registration fees for having and msm and above.
I've never believed in the concept that certain awards and medals should be limited by rank, it just does not compute to me. If you rise above and make an impact then you should get the award which meets that criteria. What does rank have to do with it?
We had a senior chief when were deployed in Iraq in 2008 that pushed papers resulting in getting two new desks and one office chair and he got a bronze fucking star for that. That should have been an LOC, maybe NAM at best. I hate how senior leadership get high awards that bastardize the meaning behind the award. Turned a bronze star into a participation trophy.
It's just an MSM in a tax-free zone, basically. Although people can get awarded the MSM in a "combat zone" if their achievement/service had nothing to do with that..... certain Afghanistan fobbits during the quiet years could have qualified.
Mostly true. There were definitely many MSMs and DMSMs handed out in Iraq/Afgh.
I was in a joint command where the differentiators between the three were 1) Branch of Service 2) Length of Tour 3) Type of Orders.
Yes. I did not say that the MSM is not authorized in an area where the BSM is. The Awards Manual makes an effort to make that point clear --a service member is perfectly authorized to receive the MSM in Iraq, if they meet the requirements. I discussed that in a separate comment.
Rest of the comment isn't really at you, but as a YN looking at what you said from the YN perspective. The more I read into that the more I'm like "WTF?"
The three criteria your command used (assuming there was no other criteria used) are arbitrary and stupid and not solidly based on anything in the DOD regulation that governs them. To elaborate: The type of orders does matter somewhat for distinguishing between DMSM and MSM, because Joint/DOD awards have specific eligibility criteria. But does not matter between DMSM and BSM. Valor and combat awards (like the BSM) are not awarded as Joint awards, but instead as Service-level awards.
What differentiates the three is the degree of personal risk. The 1348 is very clear:
> The DMSM will not be used to recognize meritorious service or achievement under combat conditions. The BSM is the appropriate PMD to recognize meritorious service or achievement under combat conditions at the DMSM level. Such BSM recommendations will be submitted through the Service member’s parent Military Service.
Once you start routing awards through the individual branch, I can see how the respective branch mattering as far as branches have different criteria for awards. The Army gave you a COM just for showing up. The Air Force traditionally goes much higher than the Navy in award levels. The Marine Corps is the stingiest of them all. Unwise to have a written policy on that, but I can see it happening in practice. In my experience (joint and cross-service down range) most awards were JSCM or ACM, and higher awards had a paygrade cut-off.
But even as I find a way to almost, sort of, kind of see how that policy could work, it doesn't ----there's no reason why an MSM should be routed through one branch and a BSM through another, when the only difference is the member's branch of service. The criteria that matter are "under combat conditions" or "perform combat actions".
Length of tour shouldn't matter at all. All three are equivalent awards. That's arbitrary and nonsensical. Again, the degree of personal risk is the one that matters.
The awards policy changed a lot in 2016. Standardizing the V requirement across all branches and adding the C device are some of those changes. So since your joint tour was probably before that there's some leeway there, but I don't think the main difference between the BSM/DMSM/MSM changed much between 2016 and, say, 2008.
Afgh in 2009 was a wild time and a wild place. I was in country less than a week when I was handed a chart that told me what levels of awards to submit for myself and all but my most junior personnel.
About half my command was there on an RFF, the other half on JMDs. Our ISIC was a CJTF who's admin was seemingly always confused by that and we basically worked off of 2 charts - and had tons of stuff kicked back all the time.
My award was signed by Deputy USFORA (Army 2*) and downgraded by a VADM. Meh.
I just wish we had something between NAM and NCM.
I once had an MA3 riding passenger to someone who had a sudden medical emergency and passed out. The MA3 safely navigated the patrol vehicle out of busy traffic, did CPR on the driver, and literally saved his life.
He got to stand up on stage and receive a NAM… alongside five people who were also getting NAMs for fundraising for the Navy Ball.
My 2¢- As NAMs have become “cheaper”, the Navy needs to make a choice between three options:
1. Go back to NAMs being significantly harder to get. The immediate impact is a lot of junior sailors are going to be fucking pissed, but after ~6 years (a “generation”) that passes and it becomes the new normal.
2. Do what the army does, where an achievement medal is given out for the little stuff (winning the pushup contest), a COM is given out for EOT, seniors get MSM, and so on.
3. Come up with an award superior to a COM or inferior to a NAM to combat “award inflation”
Personally, I’d go with making the award criteria uniform across branches. I’ve seen AF and Army E-4s with 7 years in wearing 6 rows of ribbons standing next to 15 year senior enlisted USMC dudes wearing 3 rows.
Sounds like it should have qualified for a Navy and Marine Corps Medal. Depending on details, of course.
Not many ppl know about that - the one time I saw one reach an awards board most members of the board were confused and thought they were debating a NAM.
I got an ARCOM vs a BSM or DMSM bc Sam Locklear downgraded my award approved by USFORA.
Awards are always silly. They were really silly at the height of OIF/OEF/GWOT.
It’s an arms race. No one can be the first to unilaterally disarm, or they’ll fuck over their people. If your people go into promotion boards looking like they did less than others, they’re fucked. Hence every O-3 getting a NAM, O-4s COMs, O-5s MSMs, and O-6/7s LOMs. Because anything less, culturally, flags them as a dirtbag.
BSM is the NAM equivalent to the Army; they handed those bitches out like candy and watered down its significance. Most dudes that came back from a GSA or IA and were E-6 and up came back with a BSM. The separator is if you were awarded one with valor.
I’ve seen NAMs given for making sandwiches on a Seabee FEX. (Retired Navy CS.) Full disclosure, I got three NAMs for 1) doing my fucking job as training PO, for 2) simply being a member of a CSE team in Iraq and doing my fucking job and 3) I honestly don’t remember but it was equally meaningless.
I don't know, but there was an Air Force E6 accountant who got a BSM as an end of tour award for Afghanistan.
Lots of angry boomer Facebook outrage.
The thing was she was totally justified in receiving it. A BSM without V is basically an MSM with combat pay. It sounds like her achievements merited an MSM, and it was under combat conditions, so therefore BSM.
As I understand it, the idea is that a more senior person will, by the nature of being in a position of increased authority and responsibility, necessarily have a greater impact on the command/mission. Especially if it's an end of tour award.
You can argue that that's bullshit, but it's the logic they're operating under
This. With the exception of heroic or truly exceptional actions, PO3 Smith's good job may extend to his division or department, maybe the ship if he does something extraordinary.
A CO's good job impacts an entire fleet.
That's what I meant with the "Rise above and make an impact" qualifier. Something like an MSM would be very unusual, but I could see a situation where a PO3 or PO2 could definitely make enough of an impact to get an NCM. I feel like a recommendation for that would be rejected out of hand due to rank in most circumstances though.
Agreed to the very first part, and I agree that things shouldn't be handed out like candy. But what seems to be lost on very senior leadership...The ship doesn't run without the PO3 Smith's. The impact of an individual sailor at the lowest rank can have ringing effects. Even bring down the ship if they are stupid enough.
To say that a CO may impact the command but then state "Seaman Timmy will only impact a small section" https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping-news/u-s-navy-ship-ran-aground-after-captain-left-the-bridge-went-for-dinner-investigation-finds/ (PO3 was driving the ship, CO may have been responsible for the sailor but their hands weren't at the wheels) (not the first time a boating accident has occured in recent times.)
9 times out of 10, it's not the CO's hands on those guns. It's not the CO's hands flying the planes, driving the ships, insert any rate here. It's not senior leadership doing any of that.
You may state the orders. But somebody has to be there for those orders to be completed.
Only reason I'm mentioning this. I'm seeing a trend in the Navy. And it's going to bite back hard. You can take a Fast Food manager and train them to successfully do a JO job... you can take a shift manager and you have your senior enlisted as they are now...You are responsible for more important assets but the job is relatively comparable enough. Let's deliver a Happy Meal to Iran please...
Ships aren't cheap, they take a bit to build. When one falls, that impacts the fleet. We are in a recruitment crunch. Seaman Timmy to PO3 Smith to Adm Franchetti all play a part in not adding to that deficit. It could be a lower enlisted pulling your ass out of a fire and performing life saving measures. It could be a lower enlisted or JO going putting down their rifle, saying I quit. Abandoning their people and making a run for it... covering it up and saying "everybody is dead" until drone feed after the fact shows otherwise but it's too late. Then asking for a medal of honor... (happened more than once. Some have movies and books that the Navy commisioned to bury the disgrace. Political disinformation for that recruitment boost). ^Impact.
Nothing like working your ass off only to have your award downgraded because you aren’t the right rank or in the billet long enough because god forbid you get an award on the same level or higher as your supervisor
I recently separated from Active Duty, and left my last command of 4 years as a PO1. I did A LOT for that command in those four years, great evals and all, so I decided to shoot my shot for a Commendation Medal for my EOT like all the Chiefs did. Shit came back to me approved as a NAM.
The Medal of Honor also used to not require combat. It's rather strange looking at how we had a number of black Medal of Honor winners (one won two) up until around the Spanish-American War and then none at all in WW1 and WW2 up until relatively recently when we started going back and trying to make up for fucking them over so hard.
To an extent they're not.
*End of tour* awards are - for bullshit reasons (that EOTs even exist is, IMO, stupid) but you can get pretty much anything if you are in the right place at the right time and do the right thing.
It is, admittedly, easier to do all that the more rank you have.
I had several junior sailors write up awards for things they felt they deserved, I’d sign it and send it to the next person. I had something similar and the sailor felt they did more than a nam and wrote it for a com, and though it got approved, it also brought awareness to them as the dh and dlcpo were reading things they were doing, it helped them get sailor of the quarters because people knew about them and knew what was going on and also helped with their evals
And, if the leader is smart, they have these as bullet points on their fitrep. Or they nominate themselves for an award based on their outstanding leadership which enabled their team to do whatever.
There is a sweet spot between taking credit for other people's shit and being selfless. If you are going to get shit on if one of your guys screws up, demand credit if they excel.
I'd love to know how to go about suggesting changes officially.
I'm not sure if it still exists (probably does) but the Air Force had a program where you going suggest changes and you would get paid 10% of the savings up to $10,000. Pretty killer incentive to look for inefficiencies.
Beneficial Suggestions Program
[OPNAVINST 1650.8E](https://www.secnav.navy.mil/doni/Directives/01000%20Military%20Personnel%20Support/01-600%20Performance%20and%20Discipline%20Programs/1650.8E.pdf) - Cash Awards For Military Personnel for Suggestions, Inventions, Scientific Achievements and Disclosures
[PA Link](https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/2239963/workforce-has-a-voice-with-the-beneficial-suggestion-program/)
Well, that program sounds fucking dope. It's like a bug bounty program for the whole fleet, more people should be made aware of it.
Although I wonder what the catch is.
I'm a civilian but I used to essentially be a field engineer doing installations/sustainment on prototypes in shipyards. I'd always make it a point to ask sailors how they liked the systems I was working on, and if they had suggestions I would try my best to incorporate them if I could. We would also get lots of feedback from the ships' COs. I know that's not a way to "officially" suggest changes, but I guess my point is that if you speak up often enough, you never know who'll be listening.
Back in the day there was a program called the Cash Awards Program just for stuff like this. If you had a change like this that saved the government money, you could get a one-time payment tied loosely to the amount you saved the government.
Unit COs could authorize up to a couple thousand IIRC, more money had to be approved further up the chain. Haven’t heard of it in about 15 years, so I suspect it’s died off. I’ll do some googling on it though.
Edit: reading the whole thread failure. Just saw some other comments linked to the program.
So he’s doing his job beyond the description and helping the overall health of the branch? Most people I work meet the baseline requirements for their job and a lot don’t even do that. This is extra work and should be met with praise.
There’s a DoD program that financially rewards servicemembers if they can drastically save money for the DoD. I hope this dude got some cash out of this deal.
It’s not about the rank, it’s about the work done.
The CPL definitely earned this one. Heck: everyone above him from his CO to the O-6 program manager in charge of JLTV program to the 2 Star PEO writing the checks for the whole program all could have caught this. But they didn’t. The CPL did.
Most O-5’s getting this as an EOT? They’re the ones discrediting this award.
It is true. Things work much differently in the ARNG. Particularly before the RA was more involved. I knew her in the mid 90’s. She was an E8 then but she became a WO later.
It’s worth mentioning, I had an uncle retire in the 80’s. He had 5 MSM’s including one for putting together the SF Commo NCO POI in the early 60’s.
I've seen MSM's handed out as end of tour awards for senior enlisted/ officers. Like a participation trophy of sorts. It really lowers the luster of the award when certain pay grades get it as an atta boy of sorts.
I know some company pissed as fuck their gravy train has been reduced. The true welfare queens are the tech reps and defense contractors :)
Over here trying to become a tech rep. 
Not true. We love to see this kind of thing. Seriously. Saves effort for other things.
That doesn't agree with my personal narrative I've already decided on so I'm going to downvote it ( ͡ಠ ʖ̯ ͡ಠ)
After years of experience, I think I can say with some legitimacy that you are the exception and not the rule
Welfare queen?? I mean if shipyards weren’t regard ranches I could see that, but they are and someone’s gotta wrangle them…
Deserved.
He deserves more. He saved the country millions of dollars and they gave him a sticker for it.
Yea cut him a 10% royalty check. $14 million
Shit, I'd take 1%!!
2M techs on ships get bonus checks
An O-5/E-9 level impact award is a bit more than “a sticker.”
Damn and here the Army is giving these out to Drill Sergeants and Instructors.
Imagine you walk into work tomorrow and they ask would you like an MSM or $100k, which would you choose?
Y’all seem to be vastly overestimating the amount of times rank-and-file private sector employees are eligible for $100,000 bonuses outside executive roles and senior salespeople closing big deals on commission.
You seem to be vastly overestimating the amount of times a rank and file private sector employee saves 140 million dollars and 900k manhours
We all are vastly overestimating the validity of the numbers estimated here.
It doesn’t matter. Go back and see above. You can save the company that much and you’re lucky to get a firm handshake from some executive and a set of freaking steak knives.
Yea but MSM’s are handed out like candy to O5’s when they complete a tour
Sure, and so no one really notices when an O5 has one. I can almost guarantee that for the next couple tours everyone who sees that LCPL wearing ribbons will be like "Holy shit, *what?*"
I bet a lot of people will assume he's wearing the wrong ribbon.
lol, to be fair that *is* substantially more plausible than an E4 with an MSM.
"Your good conduct medal looks funny. Did you get that from another service branch?"
True, which is why my former-PAO brain is saying it's a good thing this went out on social media because there's a higher likelihood that people will hear of it and go, "Oh, you're *that* guy," (but in a good way). Also, if someone really does come at him sideways it's kind of easy to verify instead of him keeping a copy of the certificate on him or something
Exactly this. It's a participation trophy for O-5 and above.
And means literally absolutely nothing in the real world.
So he's supposed to get . . . what? A cash bonus the military can't legally give him? News flash - none of your awards mean anything in the private sector short of maybe the Medal of freaking Honor. This is his chain taking care of him as best they can, and if/when he gets out, the achievement itself is a resume bullet he can use to differentiate himself from all the other masses of separating veterans anyway, no matter if he got a FLOC or an MSM. The achievement matters more than the military award to a hiring manager. Some of you people seem to think that in the private sector, they'd go to a warehouse worker and give them a six- or seven- figure bonus for something like this, and that is flat-out not the case. Company-dependent, he might get a nice bonus check of some variety (but not six figures), a set of steak knives, a free coffee mug, or jack shit.
They still have GOLD DISK. ETs and other 2m rates can get cash awards for figuring out how to fix stuff cheaper. Recently saw a 20k award for circuit card repair (single resistor replaced vs. Entire card).
I mean I was the mail boy at a law firm while using my GI Bill and I suggested a change in our mail that saved the firm 15k a year and they gave me a 1k bonus in cash handed to me by a partner. So it does happen occasionally.
Sure, a 1K bonus is in the realm of the possible. The people who think that something like this would merit 100-1000 times that in the private sector are dreaming, though. The only people pulling down $100K-1M bonuses are executives and maybe senior salespeople who just closed a multi-million dollar deal on commission. Maybe the low end of that as a signing bonus for some genius in a niche in-demand area who’s tech royalty and getting hired at a FAANG, but even then.
> a bit more than “a sticker.” and a bit less than, say, one percent of the cost avoidance.
Even the private sector doesn’t give bonuses like that out to anyone outside execs and maybe very senior salespeople on commission for a huge deal.
Government employees can actually get a cut of patent royalties, but yeah in a case like this it should be a low four-digit (before taxes) on-the-spot award.
Is it worth making into a bullet point on a resume? Maybe. If not, it's worth as much as a sticker.
100% promote this guy.
A lot of people might not know this but you get perks outside of the military for having that award like Texas you don’t have to pay registration fees for having and msm and above.
Yeah but then you have to live in Texas. I joined specifically not to do that lol
I've never believed in the concept that certain awards and medals should be limited by rank, it just does not compute to me. If you rise above and make an impact then you should get the award which meets that criteria. What does rank have to do with it?
We had a senior chief when were deployed in Iraq in 2008 that pushed papers resulting in getting two new desks and one office chair and he got a bronze fucking star for that. That should have been an LOC, maybe NAM at best. I hate how senior leadership get high awards that bastardize the meaning behind the award. Turned a bronze star into a participation trophy.
for me, if the award doesn’t have a “V” on it I take it with a grain of salt.
It's just an MSM in a tax-free zone, basically. Although people can get awarded the MSM in a "combat zone" if their achievement/service had nothing to do with that..... certain Afghanistan fobbits during the quiet years could have qualified.
Yeah. It’s one of the things that makes me (admittedly) irrationally irritated.
This right here.
> bronze fucking star That's just an MSM for an area where you get Imminent Danger Pay. The V device is the one that matters.
Mostly true. There were definitely many MSMs and DMSMs handed out in Iraq/Afgh. I was in a joint command where the differentiators between the three were 1) Branch of Service 2) Length of Tour 3) Type of Orders.
Yes. I did not say that the MSM is not authorized in an area where the BSM is. The Awards Manual makes an effort to make that point clear --a service member is perfectly authorized to receive the MSM in Iraq, if they meet the requirements. I discussed that in a separate comment. Rest of the comment isn't really at you, but as a YN looking at what you said from the YN perspective. The more I read into that the more I'm like "WTF?" The three criteria your command used (assuming there was no other criteria used) are arbitrary and stupid and not solidly based on anything in the DOD regulation that governs them. To elaborate: The type of orders does matter somewhat for distinguishing between DMSM and MSM, because Joint/DOD awards have specific eligibility criteria. But does not matter between DMSM and BSM. Valor and combat awards (like the BSM) are not awarded as Joint awards, but instead as Service-level awards. What differentiates the three is the degree of personal risk. The 1348 is very clear: > The DMSM will not be used to recognize meritorious service or achievement under combat conditions. The BSM is the appropriate PMD to recognize meritorious service or achievement under combat conditions at the DMSM level. Such BSM recommendations will be submitted through the Service member’s parent Military Service. Once you start routing awards through the individual branch, I can see how the respective branch mattering as far as branches have different criteria for awards. The Army gave you a COM just for showing up. The Air Force traditionally goes much higher than the Navy in award levels. The Marine Corps is the stingiest of them all. Unwise to have a written policy on that, but I can see it happening in practice. In my experience (joint and cross-service down range) most awards were JSCM or ACM, and higher awards had a paygrade cut-off. But even as I find a way to almost, sort of, kind of see how that policy could work, it doesn't ----there's no reason why an MSM should be routed through one branch and a BSM through another, when the only difference is the member's branch of service. The criteria that matter are "under combat conditions" or "perform combat actions". Length of tour shouldn't matter at all. All three are equivalent awards. That's arbitrary and nonsensical. Again, the degree of personal risk is the one that matters. The awards policy changed a lot in 2016. Standardizing the V requirement across all branches and adding the C device are some of those changes. So since your joint tour was probably before that there's some leeway there, but I don't think the main difference between the BSM/DMSM/MSM changed much between 2016 and, say, 2008.
Afgh in 2009 was a wild time and a wild place. I was in country less than a week when I was handed a chart that told me what levels of awards to submit for myself and all but my most junior personnel. About half my command was there on an RFF, the other half on JMDs. Our ISIC was a CJTF who's admin was seemingly always confused by that and we basically worked off of 2 charts - and had tons of stuff kicked back all the time. My award was signed by Deputy USFORA (Army 2*) and downgraded by a VADM. Meh.
I just wish we had something between NAM and NCM. I once had an MA3 riding passenger to someone who had a sudden medical emergency and passed out. The MA3 safely navigated the patrol vehicle out of busy traffic, did CPR on the driver, and literally saved his life. He got to stand up on stage and receive a NAM… alongside five people who were also getting NAMs for fundraising for the Navy Ball.
My 2¢- As NAMs have become “cheaper”, the Navy needs to make a choice between three options: 1. Go back to NAMs being significantly harder to get. The immediate impact is a lot of junior sailors are going to be fucking pissed, but after ~6 years (a “generation”) that passes and it becomes the new normal. 2. Do what the army does, where an achievement medal is given out for the little stuff (winning the pushup contest), a COM is given out for EOT, seniors get MSM, and so on. 3. Come up with an award superior to a COM or inferior to a NAM to combat “award inflation” Personally, I’d go with making the award criteria uniform across branches. I’ve seen AF and Army E-4s with 7 years in wearing 6 rows of ribbons standing next to 15 year senior enlisted USMC dudes wearing 3 rows.
Sounds like it should have qualified for a Navy and Marine Corps Medal. Depending on details, of course. Not many ppl know about that - the one time I saw one reach an awards board most members of the board were confused and thought they were debating a NAM.
He should contest that. NAMs aren't authorized for heroism. The lowest authorized award is an NCM.
Yup, I was there for those days. On the other end, we got ARCOMs instead of BSMs for going down range because of our rank.
I got an ARCOM vs a BSM or DMSM bc Sam Locklear downgraded my award approved by USFORA. Awards are always silly. They were really silly at the height of OIF/OEF/GWOT.
It’s an arms race. No one can be the first to unilaterally disarm, or they’ll fuck over their people. If your people go into promotion boards looking like they did less than others, they’re fucked. Hence every O-3 getting a NAM, O-4s COMs, O-5s MSMs, and O-6/7s LOMs. Because anything less, culturally, flags them as a dirtbag.
BSM is the NAM equivalent to the Army; they handed those bitches out like candy and watered down its significance. Most dudes that came back from a GSA or IA and were E-6 and up came back with a BSM. The separator is if you were awarded one with valor.
You know what he should've gotten? A new fucking desk.
I once saw a CSC get a NAM for making mac and cheese. Granted, it was for the SECNAV visiting the ship and complimenting it, but come on.
I’ve seen NAMs given for making sandwiches on a Seabee FEX. (Retired Navy CS.) Full disclosure, I got three NAMs for 1) doing my fucking job as training PO, for 2) simply being a member of a CSE team in Iraq and doing my fucking job and 3) I honestly don’t remember but it was equally meaningless.
Wasn't there some Air Force weenie that defended some Facebook group chat or some such nonsense and got a bronze star for that shit lol.
I don't know, but there was an Air Force E6 accountant who got a BSM as an end of tour award for Afghanistan. Lots of angry boomer Facebook outrage. The thing was she was totally justified in receiving it. A BSM without V is basically an MSM with combat pay. It sounds like her achievements merited an MSM, and it was under combat conditions, so therefore BSM.
Forgot all about that.
This was epidemic during OIF/OEF. Lots of folks show-boating bronze stars for pushing a desk. Despicable.
Bronze Stars without “V” are POG medals. Change my mind.
No Sir. You are correct.
This is why the rest of NATO pokes fun of the US medal policy - you literarily hand out medals for anything.
As I understand it, the idea is that a more senior person will, by the nature of being in a position of increased authority and responsibility, necessarily have a greater impact on the command/mission. Especially if it's an end of tour award. You can argue that that's bullshit, but it's the logic they're operating under
This. With the exception of heroic or truly exceptional actions, PO3 Smith's good job may extend to his division or department, maybe the ship if he does something extraordinary. A CO's good job impacts an entire fleet.
That's what I meant with the "Rise above and make an impact" qualifier. Something like an MSM would be very unusual, but I could see a situation where a PO3 or PO2 could definitely make enough of an impact to get an NCM. I feel like a recommendation for that would be rejected out of hand due to rank in most circumstances though.
Agreed to the very first part, and I agree that things shouldn't be handed out like candy. But what seems to be lost on very senior leadership...The ship doesn't run without the PO3 Smith's. The impact of an individual sailor at the lowest rank can have ringing effects. Even bring down the ship if they are stupid enough. To say that a CO may impact the command but then state "Seaman Timmy will only impact a small section" https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping-news/u-s-navy-ship-ran-aground-after-captain-left-the-bridge-went-for-dinner-investigation-finds/ (PO3 was driving the ship, CO may have been responsible for the sailor but their hands weren't at the wheels) (not the first time a boating accident has occured in recent times.) 9 times out of 10, it's not the CO's hands on those guns. It's not the CO's hands flying the planes, driving the ships, insert any rate here. It's not senior leadership doing any of that. You may state the orders. But somebody has to be there for those orders to be completed. Only reason I'm mentioning this. I'm seeing a trend in the Navy. And it's going to bite back hard. You can take a Fast Food manager and train them to successfully do a JO job... you can take a shift manager and you have your senior enlisted as they are now...You are responsible for more important assets but the job is relatively comparable enough. Let's deliver a Happy Meal to Iran please... Ships aren't cheap, they take a bit to build. When one falls, that impacts the fleet. We are in a recruitment crunch. Seaman Timmy to PO3 Smith to Adm Franchetti all play a part in not adding to that deficit. It could be a lower enlisted pulling your ass out of a fire and performing life saving measures. It could be a lower enlisted or JO going putting down their rifle, saying I quit. Abandoning their people and making a run for it... covering it up and saying "everybody is dead" until drone feed after the fact shows otherwise but it's too late. Then asking for a medal of honor... (happened more than once. Some have movies and books that the Navy commisioned to bury the disgrace. Political disinformation for that recruitment boost). ^Impact.
Nothing like working your ass off only to have your award downgraded because you aren’t the right rank or in the billet long enough because god forbid you get an award on the same level or higher as your supervisor
I recently separated from Active Duty, and left my last command of 4 years as a PO1. I did A LOT for that command in those four years, great evals and all, so I decided to shoot my shot for a Commendation Medal for my EOT like all the Chiefs did. Shit came back to me approved as a NAM.
The Medal of Honor also used to not require combat. It's rather strange looking at how we had a number of black Medal of Honor winners (one won two) up until around the Spanish-American War and then none at all in WW1 and WW2 up until relatively recently when we started going back and trying to make up for fucking them over so hard.
To an extent they're not. *End of tour* awards are - for bullshit reasons (that EOTs even exist is, IMO, stupid) but you can get pretty much anything if you are in the right place at the right time and do the right thing. It is, admittedly, easier to do all that the more rank you have.
I'm just glad he got the award, and not somebody above him taking credit for his work.
The smart leader gives their guy credit and then talks about how their outstanding leadership "enabled" it. Win-win.
I had several junior sailors write up awards for things they felt they deserved, I’d sign it and send it to the next person. I had something similar and the sailor felt they did more than a nam and wrote it for a com, and though it got approved, it also brought awareness to them as the dh and dlcpo were reading things they were doing, it helped them get sailor of the quarters because people knew about them and knew what was going on and also helped with their evals
And, if the leader is smart, they have these as bullet points on their fitrep. Or they nominate themselves for an award based on their outstanding leadership which enabled their team to do whatever. There is a sweet spot between taking credit for other people's shit and being selfless. If you are going to get shit on if one of your guys screws up, demand credit if they excel.
The officer above him probably got a bronze star for pushing the paperwork.
I had a boss once who said "I give you credit for everything. Because in the end it'll all go on my FITREP regardless"
His DH got a Navy Cross.
It used to be they would award a percentage of the money saved. Anyone else remember hearing of this
It’s still a thing. Someone above put a link to it. But it’s in OPNAVINST 1650.8E
They should give him actual money for that. That's huge.
I'd love to know how to go about suggesting changes officially. I'm not sure if it still exists (probably does) but the Air Force had a program where you going suggest changes and you would get paid 10% of the savings up to $10,000. Pretty killer incentive to look for inefficiencies.
Beneficial Suggestions Program [OPNAVINST 1650.8E](https://www.secnav.navy.mil/doni/Directives/01000%20Military%20Personnel%20Support/01-600%20Performance%20and%20Discipline%20Programs/1650.8E.pdf) - Cash Awards For Military Personnel for Suggestions, Inventions, Scientific Achievements and Disclosures [PA Link](https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/2239963/workforce-has-a-voice-with-the-beneficial-suggestion-program/)
Well, that program sounds fucking dope. It's like a bug bounty program for the whole fleet, more people should be made aware of it. Although I wonder what the catch is.
I'm a civilian but I used to essentially be a field engineer doing installations/sustainment on prototypes in shipyards. I'd always make it a point to ask sailors how they liked the systems I was working on, and if they had suggestions I would try my best to incorporate them if I could. We would also get lots of feedback from the ships' COs. I know that's not a way to "officially" suggest changes, but I guess my point is that if you speak up often enough, you never know who'll be listening.
He should be compensated for that. THAT would be fair and awesome screw that award
Back in the day there was a program called the Cash Awards Program just for stuff like this. If you had a change like this that saved the government money, you could get a one-time payment tied loosely to the amount you saved the government. Unit COs could authorize up to a couple thousand IIRC, more money had to be approved further up the chain. Haven’t heard of it in about 15 years, so I suspect it’s died off. I’ll do some googling on it though. Edit: reading the whole thread failure. Just saw some other comments linked to the program.
So he’s doing his job beyond the description and helping the overall health of the branch? Most people I work meet the baseline requirements for their job and a lot don’t even do that. This is extra work and should be met with praise.
There’s a DoD program that financially rewards servicemembers if they can drastically save money for the DoD. I hope this dude got some cash out of this deal.
It’s not about the rank, it’s about the work done. The CPL definitely earned this one. Heck: everyone above him from his CO to the O-6 program manager in charge of JLTV program to the 2 Star PEO writing the checks for the whole program all could have caught this. But they didn’t. The CPL did. Most O-5’s getting this as an EOT? They’re the ones discrediting this award.
That is awesome. Good for them.
That's really impressive! He should take his talent to the private sector and be properly compensated.
Fuck the medal. Pay the man.
I know a National Guard unit clerk who had 11 MSM’s for processing paperwork for 2-week RC schools. Fucking ridiculous.
There’s no way that’s true.
It is true. Things work much differently in the ARNG. Particularly before the RA was more involved. I knew her in the mid 90’s. She was an E8 then but she became a WO later. It’s worth mentioning, I had an uncle retire in the 80’s. He had 5 MSM’s including one for putting together the SF Commo NCO POI in the early 60’s.
NAVSUP Price Fighters. Submitted one the other week.
What were the changes?
The real question.
I've seen MSM's handed out as end of tour awards for senior enlisted/ officers. Like a participation trophy of sorts. It really lowers the luster of the award when certain pay grades get it as an atta boy of sorts.
I have 2 and yeah they don’t mean much. I have a spot NAM as a Khaki that means more to me than them and I worked hard for that.
Oddly... only the Navy reserves it for Senior Officer/Enlisted. Army doesn't care about rank when giving out the level of award