How long between recommandation and award of US medals ?

[fantassin]

Having been proposed for a US medal (US army commendation medal), I am curious to know how long it could take before a decision is taken on the award, what channels are involved (US Army, State dpt...) and what the chances are that a foreigner actually gets such a medal.

[Olybrius]

how do you got that?
I remember obtained distinctions at shootings meeting with the US army in Wiesbaden, but nothing to see with true medals.

[fantassin]

During a joint Franco-American Operation as they happen routinely all over the world day in day out in spite of all the crap you read about "France's irrelevance".....

[shrek]

depends on command. It has to go up the chain and be signed by the man. Then a time for you to be awarded has to be aranged. i would say a month from the day you were told you were reccomended.

[Zapp Brannigan]

It takes a little longer for an award to a foreign soldier. Awards to foreign personnel are covered by Chapter 8 of DoD Instruction 1348.33, "Military Awards Program".

As shrek states, the military commander makes the recommendation for the award and forwards it up the chain of command to the appropriate level for the award (lieutenant colonels can approve achievement medals, but the Secretary of Defense must approve Distinguished Service Medals, for example). At the same time, the military commander has to send a request to his service's counterintelligence agency to conduct a background check of the nominee. Once the check is done, it is forwarded to the Defense Intelligence Agency to review to "ensure the foreign military nominee has committed no act or engaged in any activity
wherein the award of a U.S. decoration would cause embarrassment to the United States." The DIA sends a statement of concurrence in the proposed award and citation back to the military commander.

In some cases, the Department of Defense must ask the State Department to contact the foreign government of the nominee to get their approval. In your case, that probably is not necessary as awards among allies are relatively common, especially for joint operations. If it were for a combat mission, though, foreign approval would be necessary. For example, the award of a Bronze Star Medal to an Australian SAS officer required Australian government approval because it meant making public the identity of a special operations soldier.

The process could take up to six months, but could be a little quicker. Good luck!

Dave

BTW, if you want to read the regulations, they are here: http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/html2/i134833x.htm

[fantassin]

Thank you very much for all those infos; I now understand why I had to provide a full CV of my past military carreer and why I have since received other requests for infos from my then US boss...

I will then wait and see !

[Pandy]

Yea, normally for the ARCOM, it goes up to the BN-CDR and he signs off for it... it does take time, ranging anywhere from 1 week (faster ever heard, next to it is 4 weeks), up to 6 months. All depands on the commander.