If you're in the AIr Force, would you wear a Combat Infantry Badge

[HereSince1628]

on your fatigues?

The prowar veteran in the "youtube" segment (on edit: on CBS evening news) was wearing airforce sergeant strips and a CIB.

I never served with anyone who had served in more than one service, so I really don't know.
When I noticed that it made me wonder how that would work.

[Rick Myers]

1. Sounds very strange. My experience is years old,

but I've never heard of such a thing. Even when we qualified as marksmen we didn't wear the badge. But things have changed alot...

[Aviation Pro]

2. He may have been an infantryman and then did a service switch...

...to the USAF. It's not that uncommon and he would still be entitled to wear the CIB gong.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

3. They're starting to put Airmen on the front lines now

They're running out of Army infantry soldiers so they're robbing the other services for their fodder.

It would not at all surprise me to see a combat veteran in the Air Force. If he's wearing the badge, there's an honest chance he earned it.

[HereSince1628]

5. Being in combat, or a combat zone generally isn't enough

The requirements are listed on this site:

http://www.americal.org/awards/cib.htm

[Toots]

6. Not sure he could qualify as an air force personel

It is an "Infantry" badge afterall. A clerk could be in a whole bunch of combat but still not be eligible to wear an Infantry badge. He may have been an Infantry soldier and switched branches to air force and would still be authorized to wear it. Rules may have changed though because God knows 9-11 changed everything.

[Twillig]

4. I've read of a guy who was a submariner.

wore his dolphins as some kind of eye doctor in the AF.

One of my Army buddies (as a Tanker!) went to Air Assault school and passed. He got to wear those wings when later he went through ROTC and got to be an officer in the AF.

"Wannabees!" he'd always say to us.

[jody]

7. Yes if I earned it. I've several AF friends who earned their Combat Infantry Badge during Army tours

I have an AF friend who spent 10 years as a Navy Seal.

[tabasco]

10. You have to be in the Army infantry or special forces to get a CIB.

The USAF might have an equivalent award of some type but it's not the CIB.

[jody]

16. I was not clear, I meant when they were in the Army. n/t

[TexasProgresive]

8. You are required to wear every service award ever given

So if someone was in the army and went to the AirForce whatever he/she got in the army they are required to wear in the AirForce.

[jmowreader]

11. No, you're AUTHORIZED to do so

When I was in leadership school at Bad Tolz, Germany, one of our instructors was Master Sergeant Robert Rainville--veteran of the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, basically everywhere there was a pissing contest since the end of World War II. Sergeant Rainville was about five-four. He was also, at the time, the most highly decorated soldier then on active duty. He had, IIRC, every award he possibly could have earned with the exception of the Medal of Honor, and he probably should have had that. He also had a slew of badges--airborne, air assault, rigger, expert infantry, combat infantry...when they told this gentleman to be all he could be, he took them literally.

His height comes into play here because, if he were to wear every award he'd earned in accordance with the regulation, his lapels would have covered most of them. When he dressed in greens, he had several ways of setting them up. He'd usually wear three rows of ribbons--the top three rows on his salad bar--his Combat Infantry Badge, Master Parachutist Badge and Rigger Badge. At graduation exercises, he'd show up with no badges but with all his ribbons.

Most guys will wear everything they've ever been awarded, but the troops who have the coveted "continued on next uniform" badge generally thin it out.

[TexasProgresive]

17. Unless things have changed since I was in the service

and my father before me- you can receive discipline for not displaying all service awards. My Dad was a WW II vet who reenlisted in the early 60's. He was required to wear all his ribbons when he was a buck private in basic training.

[jmowreader]

20. Technically you CAN be punished...

yes, it's in the AR that you must wear everything...but in the real Army outside the training centers if you've got an extraordinary number of awards, or something really rare that draws too many questions, no one's going to complain much if you leave it off the uniform sometimes.

Example: the Soldier's Medal. One of my team members in Berlin had one. This is the highest peacetime award you can get, and it's given for a heroic deed involving risking your life to save someone else. (He rescued a soldier at Fort Polk from an alligator in the 1980s.) He wore it three times a year: to the MI Ball in December, to the company change-of-command inspection so the incoming commander knew he had it, and to the annual Command Inspection. Other than that, he left it in the drawer because after you tell the same story five or six hundred times you're tired of it.

Except for him, most of us wore everything--most of us didn't have very many awards. When I got out I had an Army Superior Unit Award, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal (three oak leaf clusters), National Defense Service Medal, Humanitarian Service Medal, Army of Occupation Medal, NCO Professional Development Ribbon, Army Service Ribbon and Overseas Service Ribbon. You'd wear that much stuff. Colonel McGuinness...he left off a bunch of stuff because some of it brought back really bad memories. He had three Silver Stars and wore none because, as he put it, there were too many dead teammates on those medals. His Legion of Merit honored them.

[Cruzan]

18. Army bling

Badges (as opposed to medals) have gotten so out of hand that limitations (as you alluded to in a post below) have been imposed as to how many you can wear at once:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badges_of_the_United_States_Army

[sailor65]

9. Likely a cross-service ribbon

The Air Force developed the Combat Action Medal as an equivalent, issued after 9/11. This replaces the modification (Gold-rimmed) to the Expeditionary Badge. Some squadrons have prohibited the wearing of cross-service ribbons, preferring that Airmen wear the Air Force equivalent. This guy either probably needed permission from his commander to wear the Infantry ribbon.

What has pissed a lot of Airman off is the fact that the Combat Action Ribbon was applied only to service after 9/11. Prior combat service (Which my father saw a whole lot of in Vietnam as an Airman) was excluded.

[jmowreader]

12. The CIB isn't a ribbon

It's a blue bar about 3" wide x 1/2" high. In the middle of the bar is a musket; around the bar is a wreath. (If there is no wreath it's an Expert Infantry Badge--you take a test, and if you get all the answers right you earn the EIB. You are authorized to wear both awards as they mean different things.)

You'll also see CIBs with one or two stars across the top of them. A CIB with one star denotes the wearer has been to two wars; two stars is for three wars. Once you've been in your third war there is no further award--no three-star CIBs for fourth wars.

What you must do to earn the CIB:

1. Be in the Infantry or Special Forces as an enlisted man or as an officer in grade of colonel or below.

2. Personally engage the enemy in combat while serving in a unit smaller than brigade size.

The CIB is the only award in the Army that is worn above the Medal of Honor.

[sailor65]

13. I thought the CIB had an accompanying ribbon

the Air force version includes badge and ribbon. I thought the CIV did as well. Thanks for the correction.

[tabasco]

14. I've never seen anybody wear the CIB and EIB together.

I don't think you can wear both. In fact, I think you are required to wear the CIB if you have both.

But it's been a long time since I read the regs.

[jmowreader]

15. Turns out you're right, sorry for my error

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_Infantryman_Badge

AR 670-1 says the CIB takes precedence...the CIB, EIB and Combat Action Badge are all Group 1 badges.

They go from Group 1 to Group 5...

Another bad Army war story follows: one of the Group 5 badges is the Driver and Mechanic Badge, given to those who display exceptional skill in driving vehicles. The regulation states that if you are qualified to drive a vehicle, and you put 8000 miles on it without an accident or violation, you are eligible for this badge. In Korea I made it to 7900 miles then got sideswiped by some Korean civilian in a Kiamaster. Pissed ME the fuck off, I'm here to tell ya.

[conscious evolution]

19. I can see why they are getting them

Air Force security police are(or at least used to be?) responsible for a 10k security zone around air bases.I can totally see how they would get into ground combat situations.

[jmowreader]

21. They cannot get the Combat Infantryman Badge unless they're Infantrymen

You must hold an Army Infantry or Special Forces MOS (except for SF medics, who are eligible for the Combat Medical Badge) and engage in infantry combat to receive the CIB.

This is why they finally invented the Combat Action Badge: quite a few MOS routinely engage in infantry combat--just about all the combat arms, for example--but you can't get the CIB if you're not an MOS-qualified infantryman.