Elusive MSM

There are no clear rules or rank requirements to earning Army medals, but here's generally how things work:

• Army Achievement Medal (AAM). You can earn this in two ways: 1.) Do a really good job at something (like a field exercise), or 2.) Stay out off trouble for an entire assignment as an E1 through E5.
• Army Commendation Medal (ARCOM). Realistically, you only get this if you're an E6 or higher and have stayed out of trouble throughout your entire assignment.
• Meritorious Service Medal (MSM). For this, you have to be at least a major, or have served as a company commander.

For logisticians, then, company command gets you two things -- branch qualification and a nifty medal. However, the captains in charge of the S1 (administration), S2 (intelligence), and S6 (communications) sections are not quite so fortunate. Like the logistics company commanders, they fill key developmental (e.g. required) positions for their branches, but they don't get the the same level of recognition for their efforts.

This happened recently. Our battalion's S1 recently finished a successful two-year tour with the battalion and was ranked by the battalion commander in the top 1% of all captains he's worked with in his twenty-plus years of service. They were so highly esteemed that they were selected for a nominative position in the Pentagon as their next assignment. Pretty cool.

Nevertheless, despite their performance they had to settle for an ARCOM. The MSM will have to wait until they reach major.