ribbon worn by cadets??

C

cooper1234

5-Year Member
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Jun 28, 2010
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A few months ago, I had a speaker from USMA come to my school to talk about the academy, and I remember him wearing a red ribbon with a yellow stripe down the middle. Now, a couple of minutes ago, I noticed that the cadet in uniform on the right side of the banner on this website is wearing the same ribbon. Is this ribbon awarded to all students of the USMA? What is it exactly?
 
It's an award for joining up during a time of war, I believe.
 
It's the National Defense Service Medal. It's authorized for everyone who joined in a certain time period. It was authorized for a long, long time and then went away. It came back after September 11, 2001. We started wearing it that year, when I was Yuk. We call it the Breathing Medal, because that's all it takes to get it...keep on breathing.
 
When I was in the Marine Corps we called it the the fire watch ribbon. You had to be on active duty a certain number of days (90?) in a time of war. Thus, those who attended the Naval Academy or who were members of a ROTC unit (not sure but think so) during Viet Nam got them but those were commissioned through PLC, like me, did not.
 
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