Awards and Decorations

You pin on your first ribbon the day you graduate Basic Military Training, and from that day forward the Air Force keeps score. Recognition carries real weight in promotions, assignments, and professional reputation, and the part you control most is whether your work gets documented.

Two systems, one permanent record

Military decorations are the medals. They recognize specific acts, achievements, or periods of meritorious service, become part of your permanent military record, authorize permanent ribbon wear, and feed WAPS promotion points. Two publications govern them: DAFI 36-2803, The Military Decorations and Awards Program and DAFMAN 36-2806, Military Awards: Criteria and Procedures (1)(2). Only one decoration of the same type may be awarded for the same act, achievement, or period (1).

Recognition programs (quarterly and annual awards, Outstanding Airmen of the Year, the Levitow Award, career-field awards) acknowledge superior performance over a specific evaluation period and run on the DAF Form 1206 nomination (5). With one exception (the OAY ribbon), they put nothing on your uniform. They still matter, and a recognition award and a decoration can both cover the same timeframe because they serve different purposes (1).

Decorations follow a strict order of precedence: personal decorations first, with the Medal of Honor at the top, then unit awards, campaign medals, service awards, and foreign decorations. AFPC publishes the complete precedence chart. Unit awards recognize collective accomplishment rather than individual performance; the Presidential Unit Citation is the highest, requiring Secretary of the Air Force approval, and anyone assigned to the unit during the award period wears the ribbon (1).

Three medals will do most of the work

Most enlisted Airmen deal with three decoration tiers, and knowing which fits which situation matters: a commander who submits at the wrong level can delay or derail the whole package.

Point values per AFI 36-2502 (3).

The ASCOM and ASAM were renamed from "Air Force Commendation Medal" and "Air Force Achievement Medal" on 16 November 2020 (2), so expect to hear the old names from anyone who served before then. Above the MSM, approval climbs the chain, all the way to the Secretary of the Air Force Decorations Board for valor awards (1).

Land a joint assignment someday and the joint equivalents come into play: the Joint Service Commendation and Joint Service Achievement Medals each carry 3 WAPS points, and neither can cover a period already recognized by a service-specific medal (3).

Decorations can also carry devices, standardized DoD-wide on 7 January 2016: the Valor "V" for heroism under enemy action, the Combat "C" for meritorious service under combat conditions, and the Remote "R" for direct impact on combat operations from off the battlefield, which matters for RPA, cyber, space, and ISR careers. DAFMAN 36-2806 Change 3 (August 2025) added previously omitted authority for the "R" device (2).

The ribbons that arrive on schedule

Your first ribbon is the Air and Space Training Ribbon, earned by completing Basic Military Training. Excel in every phase of academic and military training and you may add the BMT Honor Graduate Ribbon (see Graduation Week). Two more accrue almost automatically:

• Air Force Good Conduct Medal (enlisted only): three consecutive years of active service (one year during wartime) with character and efficiency ratings of "excellent" or higher and no court-martial convictions (4). It carries zero WAPS points, but it documents sustained professionalism.
• Air and Space Longevity Service Award: four years of honorable service in any U.S. armed forces branch, with an Oak Leaf Cluster added for each additional four.

The awards ladder runs from your flight to the whole Air Force

Competitive awards run quarterly (three-month periods) and annually (the calendar year) at every level of the organization. Competition starts at your flight or section and climbs through squadron, group, wing, Numbered Air Force, and Major Command to the Air Force level, with winners at each echelon advancing to the next. Enlisted members compete as Airman (through Senior Airman), NCO, or SNCO, with separate categories for officers and for First Sergeants.

These wins rarely produce a ribbon, but they compound. A quarterly award is documented proof you performed above your rank, which becomes evidence in enlisted performance reports, supporting material for Below-the-Zone promotion, and source material for future decoration narratives.

At the top of the ladder sits the Outstanding Airmen of the Year (OAY) program, the pinnacle of enlisted recognition, running since 1956 with the current 12-member format in place since about 1968 (6). An Air Force Personnel Center board selects the 12 from nominees across every command; the 2024 board considered 35 nominees (7). Winners receive the OAY ribbon with bronze service star (the one recognition award worn permanently), the OAY badge for one year, and recognition at the Air and Space Forces Association's Air, Space and Cyber Conference (6). It is a Total Force program: the 2024 winners included Active Duty, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard members (7).

One more award worth knowing by name: the John L. Levitow Award, the highest honor at every level of enlisted Professional Military Education. Only one student per class earns it at Airman Leadership School, the NCO Academy, and the Senior NCO Academy (8). It is named for the lowest-ranking enlisted Medal of Honor recipient in Air Force history. On 24 February 1969, Airman First Class John Levitow was flying aboard an AC-47D gunship over Long Binh, South Vietnam, when an 82mm mortar round struck the aircraft. Bleeding from more than 40 shrapnel wounds, he threw himself on an activated Mark-24 magnesium flare and hurled it out the cargo door, saving the crew and the aircraft.

Awards are won on paper

Since 1 October 2022, the 1206 uses narrative Performance Statements instead of the old bullet format (10). Each statement must stand alone as a complete sentence pairing an action with at least one impact, result, or outcome. Per AFPC guidance, write in past tense with active voice, plain language, and only acronyms from the approved list; white space on the right margin is expected, not a weakness (10). Line limits vary by award level and command.

Evaluators score the Whole Airman Concept: leadership and job performance in primary duty alongside community service, professional organizations, off-duty education, and self-improvement.

Strong packages are not written the night before a suspense date. Keep a running accomplishment log (Airmen call it a bullet tracker) and capture concrete metrics as they happen: dollars saved, personnel impacted, hours reduced, mission success rates. The AFRC Writing Guide makes the point directly: award-winning packages become the source material for later decoration narratives (9). The packages that die are usually the ones that blow the line limit, lean on unapproved acronyms, claim actions with no quantified result, or arrive after the suspense.

Decorations have deadlines

Any U.S. Armed Forces member or DoD civilian with firsthand knowledge may recommend someone for a decoration; you may never recommend yourself (2). For enlisted members the package flows from supervisor to First Sergeant or Senior Enlisted Leader, then to the commander for endorsement, then to the approval authority.

Then the clock runs. Combat and valor decorations must be initiated within 90 days of the act. Everything else must enter official channels within three years and be presented within five; only the Purple Heart is exempt from the time limits (1). These windows bite most often during PCS transitions, when a departing supervisor lets a package slip. Knowing the timeline is how you protect recognition you have already earned.

Submissions run through myDecs Reimagined, the decoration processing system rebuilt on Salesforce in January 2024: packages route to anyone on myFSS, stay editable until signed, and approved decorations post directly to your service record without manual Military Personnel Flight review (11).

Where medals become promotion points

For promotion to Staff Sergeant (E-5) and Technical Sergeant (E-6) under the Weighted Airman Promotion System, decorations earn points up to a 25-point maximum (3). Your first shot at using them comes with the Staff Sergeant cycle, which most Airmen reach around the three-year mark.

At Master Sergeant and above the math disappears: decoration points are not weighted factors for SNCO promotion (3). Boards read your decoration citations in the center stack of your record and weigh the narrative of sustained impact instead of tallying values.

Earlier still, the Below-the-Zone program promotes select Airmen First Class to Senior Airman early, with a 15% selection opportunity (12). BTZ boards review AF Form 1206 nominations and decoration citations, so quarterly and annual wins are direct evidence you are performing above your current rank.

One piece of record hygiene: promotion boards see your decorations on your personnel briefs, so verify them regularly through the Personnel Record Display Application. A missing decoration is missing promotion points.

Guard and Reserve wear the same medals

Federal decorations are identical across all three components, and Reserve and Guard members compete head-to-head with Active Duty for Air Force-level programs like OAY. The differences are administrative:

• Air Force Reserve recognition runs through the Air Reserve Personnel Center and Total Force Service Center-Denver (see the ARPC Recognition page) (9). Reservists may be decorated for work in either active or inactive status, so contributions during drill weekends and annual training count.
• Air National Guard members work two systems: federal decorations through National Guard Bureau channels, plus state awards under their state's military department regulations. A Guard career can accumulate both.

Career fields also run their own awards (Aircraft Maintenance Technician of the Year, Security Forces Member of the Year, and many more), processed through career field managers with criteria and timelines that vary by community.