These are the four medals that all soldiers deployed to Iraq get. I think they are in order of precedence from left to right, although I'm not exactly sure. From left to right they are: Armed Forces Reserve Achievement Medal; Global War on Terrorism Meda; Iraqi Campaign Medal; and National Defense Service Medal. I had 3 or 4 of the AFRAMs, and this is my third NDSM medal, though many reservists got it for the first time on deployment. It is pretty much an active duty medal.
Medals became a very charged issue in my unit. The scuttlebutt was that because the 42 ID was a NG division, it had an unrealistically stiff standard for medals and combat badges.
2 comments:
Some very impressive hardware, and well earned on your part. Not to quibble, but I don't think that all soldiers going to Iraq get the Reserve Achievement Medal -- I think that's limited to reservists. There are actually two GWOT medals, the "Expeditionary" and "Service". You have the GWOT Service Medal; I had understood that people deployed there for at least 90 days got the Expeditionary variety.
On the other hand, I was just a CENTCOM staff weenie, and in no position to dispute someone who's actually BTDT.
The AFRAM does only go to reservists and NG, but all of them get it. As I understood, we were entitled to one or the other of the GWOT medals, and I don't know how they decided which was which. Certainly we weren't given a choice. I was just handed a manilla envelope with the medals and orders stuffed in it one day, along with an M and various oak leaf clusters.
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