Talk:Authorized foreign decorations of the United States military

=order of ribbons= I put them in the order that the USN, USMC, USAF & USCG goes by: Personal Awards, Unit Awards and then Service Awards. EHDI5YS 22:55, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Soviet Medals
Shouldn't Soviet/Russian decorations be here, too? No doubt some Americans were awarded these during WWII. Specifically, the page on the Order of Victory says it was awarded to Dwight Eisenhower. Anyone know anything about it? --apoivre 12:51, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, Soviet awards were only made rarely to very senior U.S. officers and they were never authorized for wear on U.S. uniforms. -Husnock 13:42, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I know some of the awarding countries may still not be allies with the US today, but I thought that apoivre was right, even though Husnock statement is also kind of true. But when it comes to senior officers I've never heard of a medal which was unauthorized for them to wear on their uniforms. We could have some kind of a color coding to state which were only made rarely to the very senior U.S. officers. EHDI5YS 22:55, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

German (and South Vietnam) Medals
The German medals section is very misleading. With the exception of the Marksmanship badge, which is only listed in service records but hardly ever worn on a uniform, none of those medals are authorized for wear on a US military uniform. I work with service records every day and am one of the people who verifies foreign decorations authorized for wear on US uniforms. The flood medal I know for sure isn't authorized and the others I have never seen authorized in over 20 years of dealing with military service records. -OberRanks (talk) 00:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

The recent change to the page also cut out several Vietnam medals which were commonly awarded, most importantly the Navy and Air Gallantry Cross and the Staff Service Medal. Those need to go back in. -OberRanks (talk) 00:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

very misleading?
For starters I please ask you to do a little research before you start talking. You must never have heard of Command Sergeant Major (Retired) William J. Gainey, he was the first Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (SEAC). He retired April 25, 2008. He is wearing the marksmanship badge (Schützenschnur) on his official SEAC web site. http://www.jcs.mil/bios/bio_gainey.html and then here is the page of Major General Keith L. Thurgood wearing the German Army Proficiency Badge on his official web site http://aafes.com/pa/profiles/thurgood.html. "I have never seen authorized in over 20 years of dealing with military service records" Then your interaction with people with foreign decorations from Germany must be very limited. I'll give you the flood medal. The US AR unit that helped out with the flood, were awarded it by Germany. But are still trying to get approval for it, so I removed it. I have already given you examples of each award at your own page. I have personal experience on the subject, I was stationed @ Ramstein for 4 years. I'm allowed to wear the Schützenschnur on my AF uniform

"The recent change to the page cutting out several Vietnam medals" I don't see how this is possible? Sp 8503 & I were the one's who created this page from scratch. We never added those medals, so what cutting are you talking about? Talking about awards that haven't been authorized or even been awarded in over 20 years. Those awards were not very common at all, but given out manly to officers. If you don't agree then show us one enlisted man that received it? I'll do you one better show us three officers profile with this award. I backed up mine, now back up yours.


 * Yourself and Sp 8503 did not create this article from scratch, you expanded it. The article was created several years ago here  and did list several Vietnam medals which now are not listed. -OberRanks (talk) 21:42, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

For now on I suggest you look past the reg book of what ever branch (a guess would be Navy) you work for and go to yahoo or google and look them up and see if they are currently being awarded and allowed to be worn by other services.

I really hope you don't take offense to this. But before I put any medal on the page, I research it first (except the one slip up I admitted to). --EHDI5YS (talk) 19:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You have found some isolated cases, not cases which justify the standard. I am a military record historian at NPRC and work with military service records on a daily basis.  I can say for absolute certain that with the exception of the german marksmanship badges there is no standard for the award of higher German awards except in some very rare cases.  When it does happen it is also extremely rare and such awards are almost never authorized for actual daily display on a uniform.


 * As for the Vietnam medals, numerous Air Force officers were awarded the Air Gallantry Cross and several Navy officers, mostly O-5 and above (that is true) were awarded the Navy Gallantry Cross. The Staff Service Medal and Vietnamese DSMs were also common amongst the senior leadership.


 * As far as your comment about me needing to do research and look up military regulations just be aware that this is my job. I do this every day, day in and day out and have access to every military awards regulation that has ever been written.  The best thing to do would be to rewrite this article from the ground up focusing on different time periods since authoirzed foreign awards from WWII, Vietnam, the 1980s, the Gulf War, could almost be different articles.


 * In any event, if you want to leave the German medals in then go ahead. -OberRanks (talk) 21:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

What happened to the older article?
For the record, this page appears to be some kind of revamped version of an older page. The template Template:US-ForeignDecorations was designed for the original article which is now gone. This page appears to be an expansion/copy of the old one. I'm curious what exactly happened to the older version which was written be me and others years ago. Does anyone know? -OberRanks (talk) 21:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I answered my own question; this is the same article just with the template removed. The template perhaps should go back in or the entire article revamped to organize by time period instead of by nation. -OberRanks (talk) 21:44, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * About your question, how about we team up and make it a little of both??? I really hated the old look, it just really didn't look professional. This way it's more easier, in my personal opinion. Looking for an award by the country then by the war, would make more sense since some have been awarded several wars. I think a lot of people like the newer look, since you have been the first person to mention it. But what if we add right next the more older and less "active" awards, the date it was first and last awarded to American personnel. Kind of like I noted with the Soviet Union & Chinese awards. --EHDI5YS (talk) 22:24, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I would recommend listing awards by conflict and country (somehow) and listing if the award was a)commonly awarded b)rarely awarded or c)award only to senior officers. One award which I would for sure put back in is the Order of Ouissam Alaouite which was awarded to almost everyone on the Operation Torch planning staff in WWII.  You also see Patton getting it at the start of that movie.  I would help more with this but I am actually working on a reference book about this very same subject for publication through my job with the National Archives.  Since that pays the bills, I'll probably focus on that and leave this article to others. -OberRanks (talk) 12:01, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Further recommendations
I don’t think we need say "note" at the start of every paragraph...just state the information. This is compliance with Wikipedia writing style. Also, when making edits, we all should try to make larger edits before hitting the save button. Making dozens of small edits (especially when changing a single word) when they could be accomplished in a single larger edit is also preferred on this site. Here is the policy page: Manual of Style. -OberRanks (talk) 22:10, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

SACEUR
The SACEUR stands for the Supreme Allied Commander, but the Supreme Allied Commander's page dose not go much more in depth other then the first and current person to hold the position. So instead I used the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe page, because it has a list of every person who has ever held the title. --EHDI5YS (talk) 15:18, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

South American awards
I added a whole new set of medals, this time they are from South American countries. All of them were awarded to former United States Southern Command Commander General Robert H. Foglesong. --EHDI5YS (talk) 19:07, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Can who ever keeps changing the Uruguay Aeronautical Merit Medal section to saying it was awarded to General Robert H. Foglesong when he was the United States European Command Commander is totally wrong, General Robert H. Foglesong was awarded the medal for his duties during the dates of September 1999 - August 2000. When he was the Commander of the 12th Air Force and United States Southern Command Air Forces Commander at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz. So please stop changing it! --EHDI5YS (talk) 15:47, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Gold Award of the Iraqi Order of the Date Palm
As of now the ribbon that I updated is the only match on General Petraeus new ribbon rack. I looked on his personnel United States Central Command page for any update for new awards, there has been no update. The other ribbons on his rack can easily be matched to other Foreign military decorations. --EHDI5YS (talk) 15:45, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * An Iraqi medal on a US uniform...making history here. -OberRanks (talk) 23:49, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

This is NOT an Iraqi award, but a Saudi Arabian award. Google the presentation to GEN Petraeus. A number of other high ranking officers have been awarded it as well. Look at the palm attachment, which is the crest of the House of Saud. Do your research. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.79.225.190 (talk) 19:21, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

George Cross and other medals
To the best of my knowledge, no US Servicemember has been awarded the GC, as eligibility is restricted to Commonwealth Citizens only. At least two servicemembers have been awarded the George Medal (A2C Reis Leming, USAF and SSG Freeman A. Kilpatrick, USAF). In addition, would it be possible to compile a list of foreign decorations that have been awarded to US servicemembers? (I know at least two may have earned Canadian Bravery Decorations). Orville Eastland (talk) 01:43, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

French Fourragère
During my late 1980's tour with the 82nd Airborne Division, we wore the French Fourragère as an authorized Unit Award from WWII. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.109.195.224 (talk) 02:33, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

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