About the author
Staff Sergeant (Retired), U.S. Army Infantry. 11B. Bronze Star Medal. Combat Infantryman Badge — second award. Parachutist. Two branches, three wars, nine years active duty on top of seven in the Reserves. Combat photographer and co-founder of the Charlie Company Cooperative. The rack tells the story. What follows is the annotation.
The rack · ETS April 2013
USMC PFC · 1996 → SOPC CPL · 2004 → USA SSG · 2013. Everything in between is in the ribbons.
Decorations & badges
Est. 1944. Awarded for heroic or meritorious achievement or service in connection with military operations against an armed enemy. With a “V” device, it denotes valor in direct combat; without it, meritorious service — both versions carry the same hardware.
Est. 1969. The noncombat counterpart to the Bronze Star Medal — awarded for outstanding meritorious achievement or service, typically to senior NCOs and field-grade officers in positions of significant responsibility.
Est. 1945. Awarded for heroic or meritorious achievement or service — the most common personal decoration in the Army above the AAM. The “V” device version recognizes valor in direct combat.
Est. 1981. The junior personal decoration — awarded for meritorious achievement or service of a lesser degree than required for the ARCOM, primarily to junior enlisted and NCOs.
Est. 1943. The second-highest personal decoration of the naval services — awarded for heroic or meritorious achievement. Originally a ribbon device; upgraded to full medal status in 1960.
Est. 1961. Awarded for professional achievement or leadership in the naval service — the junior personal decoration of the Navy and Marine Corps, equivalent to the Army Achievement Medal.
Est. 1941. Awarded for three consecutive years of exemplary service with no court-martial convictions. Three awards is nine years of clean soldiering — deceptively difficult across three combat deployments.
Est. 1896 — one of the oldest continuous military awards in the United States, predating the Army version by 45 years. Awarded for three years of active service with no court-martial convictions.
Est. 1953. Awarded to all active duty service members during designated periods of national emergency — combat service not required. Four qualifying periods have been declared since Korea; the post-9/11 period ran through 2022.
Est. 2004, retroactive to October 24, 2001. Awarded for service in Afghanistan for 30 consecutive or 60 non-consecutive days. Campaign stars mark participation in distinct named operations — 27 were designated over the course of the war.
Est. 2004. Awarded for service in Iraq on or after March 19, 2003 — 30 consecutive or 60 non-consecutive days. Campaign stars denote specific named campaigns; 14 were established across the eight-year operation.
Est. 2003 (Executive Order 13289). Awarded for overseas deployment in direct support of GWOT operations. Service members who earn a theater campaign medal (Iraq or Afghanistan) receive that instead; the GWOT-E covers all other qualifying overseas service.
Est. 2003. Awarded for stateside or non-deployed support of GWOT operations. The GWOT-E and GWOT-S cannot both be awarded for the same period of service.
Est. 1992. Awarded by NATO (not the U.S. Army) for service with qualifying NATO-authorized operations. The ISAF clasp denotes service with the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan — one of the few foreign decorations routinely worn on the U.S. service uniform.
Est. 1939 (originally the Fleet Marine Corps Reserve Medal). Awarded for three consecutive years of satisfactory service in the Selected Marine Corps Reserve with 90% drill attendance — distinct from the Armed Forces Reserve Medal, which requires 10 cumulative years.
Est. 1981. Awarded for completion of designated NCO professional development courses — no device for any qualifying course; 1 star = WLC (formerly PLDC); 2 stars = BNCOC; 3 stars = ANCOC; 4 stars = Sergeants Major Academy. The NCOA at Schofield is known to every soldier who passed through it as Castle Grayskull.
Est. 1981. Awarded upon completion of initial entry training — Basic Combat Training and AIT. Every soldier who finishes BCT and AIT earns this ribbon. The beginning of everything else.
Est. 1981. Awarded for each qualifying 12-month period of overseas service in a designated non-combat location. Does not include combat deployments — those are covered by campaign medals. Numerical device indicates multiple awards.
Est. March 10, 1941. Awarded upon completion of the Basic Airborne Course and five qualifying jumps, including at least one at night. Designed by Captain William Yarborough of the 501st Parachute Battalion. Gateway badge to airborne units and much of the special operations pipeline.
Est. October 27, 1943. Awarded to infantry and special forces soldiers who engage in active ground combat with an armed enemy — not merely deployment, but direct hostile contact. A second award requires a second qualifying combat tour. Considered one of the most prestigious combat decorations in the U.S. Army.
Est. October 27, 1943 — same day as the CIB. Awarded to infantrymen who pass a rigorous multi-day testing event: physical fitness, weapons qualification, land navigation, and infantry skills. Pass rates typically run 20–30%. Where the CIB is issued by the enemy, the EIB is earned in training.
Est. 2025, retroactive to 1943. Awarded to soldiers who hold both the CIB and the EIB, Expert Soldier Badge (ESB), or Expert Field Medical Badge (EFMB). The gold wreath around the standard CIB design marks the convergence of combat experience and technical mastery — the capstone infantry badge.
What this is for
The awards record above is the foundation. What gets built on top of it is the part that matters: clear-eyed documentation of what infantry service actually means — the training, the culture, the cost, and the path forward for the people who carried it.
This site grew out of a hard drive full of deployment photos — 2,851 of them, shot in Iraq in '06–'07, lost for nearly two decades and then found. Sharing them was the first act. The tools and documentation that followed were the natural extension: if you're going to preserve something, preserve all of it. The good, the hard, and the still-unresolved.
ElevenBravo.org exists because this knowledge should be shared, not hoarded. Hard-won experience is only useful if it reaches the next person who needs it. That's the operating principle behind the Charlie Company Cooperative — and behind this site. If you wore the crossed rifles, you deserve a place that takes your service seriously. If you didn't, you're welcome here too.