0:00 the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time that's 1 pm on the east coast and we talk about military Doctrine military history the practices of great military leaders all by way of distilling lessons that we can apply to our professional lives so um today um I'm going to talk about um how the military rewards its its people so
0:35 um for for anyone who's been in the military you know this is the case there's no such thing as getting a bonus in the sense of of you know a a monitary bonus so you know you get paid what you get paid and in fact there's a whole schedule that that determines what your pay is based on your rate or Rank and the number of years you've been in the service so the only way to increase your salary is to advance other words go up
1:11 in rate a rank or to stay in longer um and and that that's really it there's no such thing as overtime um or or anything like that now military pay typically includes what's called Bas basic allowance for subsistence so I think these days it's around $2 $300 a month depending on whether you're single or have a family and then they have what's called bah basic allowance for housing so if you don't live um in the bars um you will
1:47 typically get BAH basic allowance for housing and that pays for your rent essentially um and some people live on base but a lot of the on base housing now is private it um and some people live off base in which case it's you know typically owned by a private uh company or a private individual and they pay their rent um and some people are pretty good about getting stationed in places that have high bah um where they can they may get say you know $3,000 a month for BAH but
2:23 their rent is only $2,500 a month and so they essentially keep that additional $500 a month but that's not because they've performed better than average or something like that that's just because they were um clever about how they handled their housing situation um there are things like Hazard pay um family separation pay flight pay all of these things you know when your duty is more hazardous or takes you away from your family you get paid more but again not because you're doing something better than somebody
2:58 else it's just you're in one of those situations and therefore you get paid so when I when I was deployed on the carrier um I got uh after I think you have to be at C for like 30 days or 90 days I forget what the rules are now but anyway after a certain period at C you get C pay um and it's a it's a little bit extra per day that that you're at C and if you're separated from your family for more than a certain number of days you get family separation pay and that's I think a certain each month or something like that so
3:33 um I mean they're nice um they don't they don't really compensate for being away from your family frankly um and they don't uh being you know cpay doesn't compensate for being at Sea believe me it doesn't um and and for an officer cpay you have to pay for your meals on the ship so you know your cpay ends up you know paying for that basically but um uh you know none of these types of compensation are tied to any sort of um Superior or extraordinary
4:08 effort on the part of a of a service member so um the the military um over the decades and centuries has come up with a way of rewarding uh Superior or meritorious or heroic uh conduct on the behalf of service members um and they do it through what are called metals or personal decorations and such so I'm going to go ahead and share my screen here and show you okay so what you're seeing here on this is a this is just a
4:43 Wikipedia page um and these are what are called Awards and decorations um that are awarded to to uh service members um now this picture right here is What's called the ribbon rack and this this particular um service member is a master chief petty officer you can tell because this um this uh badge here has the um chief petty officer's anchor on it and it's got two stars okay so that's a master chief
5:20 petty officer and and in fact this is a command master chief because it has the word command here so um if it had only one star above the anchor that would be a senior chief petty officer and if it had no stars um it would be just a chief petty officer now you'll see a number of things here so some of these are what are called qualifications so this badge right here is telling the position that this Chief master chief petty officer has within the command which is as the command chief petty
5:55 officer um he is the senior inlisted member of that command and so the commanding officer typically will run all matters related to uh enlisted people by Andor through um the CMC the the master chief petty officer the command master chief is that's what CMC stands for command master chief um in fact my friend John he was the CMC when I was at ACC log Wing that was that's the uh airwing that's up at Point meu um
6:31 and uh everything that happened with enlisted people John knew about he was involved with um he was I'll I'll give him H you know his his due he was an outstanding uh uh Chief uh master chief petty officer and um and uh we we remain friends uh to this day okay so so that this is the position in the command um and and you you know it's it's one thing to become a chief petty officer it's another thing to become a Senior Chief or a master chief when you're a CMC you're really at the very peak of the
7:07 enlisted ranks in the Navy okay and and um you don't get um additional pay for being a command chief petty officer um what what you get is The Prestige of being a CMC which which separates you or kind of puts you ahead of all the other um master chief petty officers now ahead of a or senior in essence to a command master chief is something called a Force Master Chief so a Force Master
7:45 Chief is the senior um enlisted person for an entire um set of commands basically okay and then you have something called the mcpon which is the master chief petty officer of Navy and this person is the most senior enlisted person in the entire Navy okay and that person Works um directly with the CNO the chief of Naval operations okay but the mckp pon does not get any more pay than a a a a master chief petty officer
8:21 gets who has the same number of years of service okay so but they do get to wear this wear this this B in the case of the mcpon it it doesn't say command I think it says mcpon on it um and so they have the prestige of of that position okay now um these two things here this right here and this right here these are qualification badges so this one here is um the enlisted um air Warfare
8:56 qualification and this one up here looks to me like the enlisted surface Warfare qualification so um while he's still wearing them as a a master chief petty officer or a CMC um he probably earned these very early in his career it's one of the first things a sailor does and these badges are earned for learning about these areas of warfare air Warfare and surface Warfare okay so there qualification they have they have
9:31 a list of topics that they have to learn about okay and as they learn each one and they get tested on it and they're signed off on it when once they're signed off on all of them then they um get to wear this particular badge it doesn't um entitle them to any greater pay okay um it can make a difference on um how quickly um they are um uh promoted Okay so um you know uh a a a junior sailor let's say a seaman an A3 who gets these these
10:07 badges you know right away works very very hard to get them right away um that that E3 will most likely be in line to be promoted to E4 to petty officer third class more quickly than another sailor who doesn't work hard to get these badges but the badges themselves don't entitle them to any greater pay again this is this is all by way of um um um facilitating advancement through the rates okay so um and by the way lots and lots and
10:44 lots of sailors um get get these Badges and and by the way there are officer equivalents uh for both of these um and and you know it to a certain extent the same is true for officers um depending on uh what particular uh core they belong to okay um but the real sort of award and reward system are these right here um now what you see here are called ribbons now many of these ribbons also have a metal that goes with them okay
11:20 and what you see here on this um cmc's uniform is what's called his ribbon rack you'll notice they're in groups of Threes except for the this top one there's only two because you know he has an uneven uh the number he has doesn't divide evenly by three that's all it really comes down to um and and I'm going to talk about some of these because um anyone who's been in this case in the Navy can look at this and they know quite a bit about this sailor's career okay so for example this uh ribbon right here this is a campaign
11:56 ribbon and it's the uh I think it's the Jai War ribbon I want to say let's see where is it no yeah it's well that's that's funny um I think that's that's funny that's not here oh you know what that because that one's no longer awarded actually this is the Kuwait campaign uh ribbon I believe um and this particular CMC probably when he was much Junior um he participated in the um in the first Gulf War in the Kuwait
12:32 campaign and he was given that ribbon now there's no metal connected with that um it's just a campaign ribbon okay bouncing up here this is what's called the the gwatt um Service ribbon and and that is here let's see where did I see it [Music] ah here it is the global war on terrorism service metal okay and you can see the metal here and you can see the ribbon is really just a
13:08 copy of the ribbon that's on the metal okay and you can so anyone who was in the military um on or after U March 12 2003 um gets this gwatt service medal okay now I'm gonna bounce above that you have the National Defense service medal this was established in 1953 and you see this here uh see that right there okay that that metal is given to anyone who spends at least one day on active duty in the military okay so uh and then this
13:46 one right here under the national uh defense U medal this is the gwatt Expeditionary Medal so I'm going to take you back down here uh where are the expedition [Music] medals okay here you go the global war on terrorism expeditionary metal so it was created at the same time as the gwatt service metal the difference is that someone who has the gwat expeditionary metal did some sort of
14:21 campaign um in my case I was deployed um to um to the gulf uh to the Persian Gulf and by virtue of being in that area um I I was awarded the um gwatt ter uh expeditionary metal okay so one of the things is these ones down here a lot of people tend to get them um because they're they're they're awarded really just for
14:56 um having certain things happen in your career okay now um I'm going to jump over to this one if you see this it's a maroon ribbon and it's got a bunch of stars on it now this is an award that only enlisted people can earn and it is the Good Conduct metal in this case it's the Navy Good Conduct metal okay and you can see them all there on the screen okay so the the um Navy Good Conduct metal um is is given to an enlisted person who has basically a
15:33 clean record for I believe it's a period of one year okay and and so when you see here these uh stars on it this means that this uh CMC was awarded um multiple multiple Good Conduct medals so the first time you win a metal you're given the metal itself um and this the next time instead of being given another metal you basically put a star on your Ribbon um and you would also going back down here okay so here's the metal
16:08 itself so this isn't the coast this is the uh this is the Navy I think they have it um they have it identified wrong here so there would be a star on the ribbon of the metal showing that you were um awarded it more than once okay and I'll I'll show you an example of that for for for myself but okay so so these are all given to individuals however they're therefore somewhat routine it's like the individual himself didn't do anything
16:43 particularly meritorious or anything but they they participated in certain things with with the exception of the Good Conduct ribbon so so the Good Conduct metal I should say um that was you know a merit not meritorious it was Good Conduct on the part of this service member okay so these are ones and and pretty much all the branches of the service have these now these two down here these are firearm qualifications one is small arms and one is uh rifle the Navy has metals and ribbons for that
17:18 the Army I think has badges if I'm not mistaken um as does uh the the Marine Corps I think so um these are individual these are more sort of qualific ations not unlike um the uh surface and air Warfare pins okay um don't you don't get any additional pay for these and the E stands for expert which is the top level sometimes you'll see them with an S um that stands for Sharpshooter and if you see them playing it means they've qualified at the minimum level to get the metal um but they didn't qualify at
17:53 the two higher levels okay now let's go up to these then okay so these ones here in this this third row down these are what are called Unit citations so in order to get a unit citation the entire um in the case of the Navy it could be the the entire ship um works together in order to earn that so you saw here the Navy e ribbon okay so this is not a this is not a metal
18:28 this is a ribbon okay and it has the E on it the E stands for excellence so um each year or every two years let's see if it says here I don't recall yeah um I think it's every two years but I could be wrong about that so ships of the same type compete to be the best ship of its type in the Navy okay and um the anyone who is on that ship as of a certain date who has participated in
19:06 that um uh in in that ship winning the Navy what they call the Navy e gets to wear this ribbon okay and if you look here you see he's got three e on his ribbon which means he was on in three units that won the Navy e now um one of my favorite bits from popular culture is um the the show on the town and there's a song where they talk about winning a a great big Navy e um people in the time at the time that that on the town first
19:43 came out which was the very 1949 I believe so they would have known what the Navy e meant it meant Excellence or efficiency I think they they're saying here its efficiency my understanding is it's it's the the Navy e ribbon battle efficiency ribbon I think it's actually it stands for excellence but but in any event they knew what a Navy e meant okay now back in World War II you didn't get a ribbon when your ship won a Navy e you had a little e patch that was sewn on um the the uh uniform sleeve of of the enlisted uniform it wasn't until 1976
20:20 that this ribbon was created but the Navy e has been around for a long long time and it's something that the the Sailor get um because they've worked together in order to um make their ship the best of its type in the fleet okay so that's called a unit citation now this one here I think is the presidential unit citation let me look here no I take that back that's the Navy meritorious unit Commendation okay so this is kind of a a midlevel award um
20:58 and it's because your you know your unit did something particularly good but you did it as a unit okay not as an individual you did it all together as a unit okay so you see you have these meritorious unit commendations you have Superior unit award you have efficiency Awards okay those are all unit awards okay now I'm going to jump up here because here you see you have what are called Joint meritorious unit awards and um and and you have here's the presidential
21:34 unit citations okay so these are these are higher Awards than these ones down here okay so um these are all different types of unit awards and depending on what you've done so let's say that you had a combat unit like a Marine Corps combat unit and you know they did a particularly daring rescue mission maybe they saved some um you know some civilians from being killed by terrorists okay so um they might get a um Navy unit commodation okay or
22:13 they might get even a presidential unit uh uh citation Navy and Marine Corp version okay so um it you know it depends on how noteworthy how dangerous what they did was um but again it's all because they get them everybody in the unit gets it because presumably everybody in the unit contributed to its success okay so these are unit commendations here um and um and this one this is a I think this is a unit commodation too let me see where there
22:48 where are they yeah I'm not I'm not sure what that is actually um this may be from some sort of foreign military or something no no it wouldn't be foreign forign because that would be at the end yeah I'm not sure what that is I'm not going to take the time to do it but anyway so you have unit commendations which go to the group and then finally you have what are called known as personal decorations that's these here okay and you see the list here personal design personal decorations
23:23 these are things these are awards given to individuals because of something Superior meritorious Etc that the person did okay so um excuse me the kind of lowest level are what are called achievement medals okay so um you have the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement medal now this this was an award I won um early in my career at the um and and what I the way I wanton it was because I provideed chaplain
23:59 services to the dental Battalion on my base completely voluntarily um and no one asked me to do it um you know um and and it was it was a large unit they had a headquarters plus they had dental clinics on I think four or five bases I used to visit them um on a regular basis and I used to bring I think I've told this story before I used to bring them food basically all the sailor's food right and so for that achievement I was the
24:34 that unit the commanding officer of that unit awarded me the Marine Corps uh Navy and Marine Corps Achievement medal okay now next in line is are what are called Commendation medals so um the the one the one area where I have a a problem with especially personal decorations in the military is they have what are called end of tour Awards so if you complete a tour of Duty um and and and you know you don't get in any any trouble so you will once you're at least like a petty
25:10 officer second or third or second class you get a an end of tour award okay so um my first end of tour award was when I was in okanawa and I was given the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal now interestingly enough I was submitted for the meritorious service medal um but because I was with the Marine Corps the Marine Corps would not give an officer of my rank I was a Navy Lieutenant an ' 03 they would not give me a meritorious service medal they downgraded it to a u
25:45 uh to what's what's called a Navy com a commodation medal um uh but but it was it was nice to be submitted um you know for for the higher award okay and um you can see on this sailor's uniform um oh that's interesting he only I don't see any stars so like on my uniform I've got a Navy Commendation Medal with I think it's three uh silver stars on it because I was awarded that medal four times just you know every time I you
26:20 know completed an assignment I would I would get another one it's sort of sort of obnoxious um my last tour of Duty I I refused to accept one because I so strongly disagree with end of T Awards um uh but but in any event these are for um you know other but but you'll notice that the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement medal I got which which I frankly value higher than the Navy comms that I got this was for actual Superior Service it was for something I did that was out of the ordinary and really
26:55 helped out a lot of sailors Okay so uh setting aside the whole sort of end of tour award thing sometimes these medals are awarded for some kind of superior um performance so if you're a recruiter for example and you meet a certain recruiting goal um oftentimes you will get um either a n what's called a Navy Achievement medal or a Comm a Navy Commendation Medal um you know before that Superior performance okay and and these these end of tour Awards I'm going to I'm going to skip the air
27:30 metal and such and go up um once you're um a more senior officer an' 05 or an06 so you may get a meritorious service meble service medal as your um as your end of tour award so if you're a Navy Captain typically you're going to get a meritorious service medal as your end of tour award but you might also get one for some kind of Superior Service and that's what they tried to do for me when I was in okanawa okay and and by the way had they been successful that would have been so
28:05 unusual for someone like me to get that medal as such a junior officer that it would have virtually ured my promotion so that's one of the ways that the military awards people is by giving them these personal decorations which can translate into to um the points they get toward promotion and and in some cases can virtually guarantee promotion so let's just say I had been given this um this medal um as
28:42 a first um uh a first tour uh Lieutenant okay when it came time for my record to be briefed at the promotion board if if the briefer had been on top of things he would have known that it was extraord ordinarily unusual for a sailor in my situation to get it and he would have briefed the promotion board saying you know when when Lieutenant bemel was given this award you know on Tenth of 1% or one 100th of one% of of of uh
29:18 officers get this re get this award um at at um at uh Lieutenant bml's level um this shows how extraordinary his service was when he was stationed with the Marine Corps okay um and and that would carry tremendous weight with the promotion board okay so um these These are um these are for typically non- combat related um Superior Service of some kind okay they they can be awarded
29:55 for combat but but um most often they're they're awarded for non combat related activities okay and so then then we're going to go up to sort of the next group here so you have the famous Purple Heart this is if you're wounded in action okay and then you have medals for for non-combat heroism I'm going to skip these um and I'm going to get up I'm gonna go up to the top well first of all you have the bronze star medal awarded for heroism in a combat zone or meritorious service in award Zone okay that's the bronze star that's about the
30:30 lowest level of combat award there is okay you have the distinguish flying cross for heroism or extraordinary achievement in aerial flight you have the Silver Star me uh metal which is gallantry and action okay um I'm going to skip these because these distinguished service Metals again typically not for combat and then you get up to here you have what are called the service cross medals like the Navy cross so the Navy cross is awarded for Extraordinary heroism in combat and then of course there's the the most senior
31:07 award which is the Medal of Honor now people call it the Congressional Medal of Honor that is not the correct name it is the Medal of Honor and there's one for uh it's slightly different for each of the service branches but this is the highest award um that a a service member can get and and it comes in a a ribbon that that's put around the neck the metal hangs below it all the rest of these are more conventional looking metals like like you see here the the Coast Guard uh metal here's the Navy cross you see it's a ribbon with the metal FR but it it hangs on on your
31:43 breast okay so all of these set up a system where people know what kind of metal they may get for the kind of action they take now I will quickly say I doubt the vast majority of people who ever earned a combat award were thinking wow if I do this I'm gonna get a medal of honor first of all way too dangerous way too dangerous so setting aside combat awards for a moment
32:20 um for people who are awarded distinguished service medals Superior Service medals Legion of Merit um the various meritorious service medals combination medals and achievement Metals service members know what they need to do in order to get one of these metals and they work to achieve that level of Superior Service in order to get these particular metals and and typically they want to get as
32:56 high as they can um and in so doing it helps them get promoted okay and by being promoted that increases their pay okay so this this is the system that the military has and I've talked primarily about the Navy but all of the service branches the system works the same way um and in fact um I have an Army commodation medal because of uh I'm sorry not an Army Commendation Medal I have an um army Achievement medal because of some service I provided to the Army when I was in Germany um and
33:35 this is all by way of Rec of of of each branch recognizing the performance the superior performance of its of both its own members and of members from another service branch that are helping them by way of then showing that this person is worthy of promotion so um why did I just go through this whole thing about Awards well we can do the same thing in the civilian world we can set up a system of sort of participation Awards of unit
34:11 awards and of personal decorations um especially now this is something I I I I've talked to um a couple of um nonprofit organizations about so to offer these kinds of awards to your donors and your volunteers okay neither one of them is getting paid so how can you encourage them to do more for your organization well one of the ways is to create this kind of series of awards and
34:47 it it it may sound silly but I can still remember when the um headquarters and Battalion Services colonel awarded me my first Navy Comm and all of my colleagues were lined up in ranks and I was called in front I had to stand at attention and he had um he was actually my supervisor read the citation that was submitted in when when it was requested that I be given this award and after the citation was R was read the colonel added a few comments of
35:25 his own and it was really one of the most um um appreciated things anyone in my military career ever said to me and when he when he pinned well he actually clipped the metal onto my onto my uniform I I really felt like I was part of something that what I had done had been appreciated even though in this case it was an end of tour award normally I would have been given as as a first tour Lieutenant I would have been given a n a Navy Achievement medal um but this this
36:00 Colonel um uh you know he he worked hard to he wanted to give me the meritorious service medal the the Marine Corps wouldn't let him and he even mentioned that that's what he thought it should have been but but but then you know the Marine Corps disagree with him so you know being a good Marine this is what he gave me so I really felt like like all the hard work I had done the sacrifices I had made in time away from my family was was really appreciated by by my colonel in in saying that um and I remember too um
36:35 when the dental Battalion commanding officer um gave me the reward the the award I got for for taking care of his Battalion um and it was a complete surprise I was visiting with the XO and we were just chatting and all of a sudden about a half a dozen people walk in the office and they call attention to award I'm like who's getting an award and then the EXO says you are chaplain I'm like what um and I mean again it was it was really you know I I was very proud to be recognized in that way I
37:10 didn't take care of these Sailors because I wanted a medal I took care of them because nobody was taking care of them I used to call those those kind of sailors they were in an orphan command meaning they didn't have a chaplain um people I they really appreciate this kind of recognition and by the way the fewer of the fewer Awards you give like this the more impact they have so I know organizations are used to you can see some of my plaques here from this is this is a scholarship I got that's my college degree I have some other things
37:46 here like from when I was in the Boy Scouts and such um although plaes are you know and and and little statue things they're very nice there's something about a metal that is different than all of these things so you can't you can't let's see if I'll turn it here so here's my Eagle Scout medal I got this when I was uh 13 and I'm still proud of that because of all the hard work it took to get and what it meant in terms of my achievement as as a you know a very young man people appreciate it es
38:25 especially when you imbue real meaning in these things and we can do this like I said I I think they work particularly well in um for a nonprofit um but even the for-profit world I think we can do these things we can build them into our culture and um I have a friend of mine who is a world-renowned Shakespeare teacher and he also happens to be I didn't know this until um um a few years ago he happens to be a a Gerta scholar Gerta is a great the great German writer and for his work
39:04 in promoting the work of Gerta the the German government awarded him a medal um I I don't remember exactly what it's called um but when I when I see my friend out for coffee or something he'll he'll be wearing a sports coat and he'll have the metal pinned on his Sports code and good for him I mean I've never seen anyone else with that metal um a metal like that pinned on their sports coat and and it was something he worked really his whole lifelong promoting the work of Gerta and and so um you know he
39:41 well my my opinion for what this is worth he really deserved it and he should show it off and and I think it's a nice thing for him to do um to you know to to to show appreciation for how the government German government recognized him and to you know take a couple of uh at least metaphoric bows for for the service he rendered in terms of advancing Western culture so I encourage you to think about this obviously it doesn't need to be as elaborate as the military that has you know dozens and dozens of of you know individual award personal decorations
40:16 unit citations individual Awards you don't have to go that but maybe you have just two or three for different things um and uh I I think you might be surprised how much people um really showing my age really dig that that kind of recognition so that's our show for today um hope hope you found it interesting um a little bit of insight into the military and and and how all this stuff works um tomorrow my show is people making money
40:53 it's at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time and uh um trying to remember what our topic is uh hold on one second I'm going to tell you it is oh yes we're going to be talking about the state of the economy so you know we hear about what inflation is or unemployment but those are all national numbers they don't mean anything to us as individuals really only they only indicate sort of the general direction of of the national economy so I'm going to take you through the numbers show you where to find them and and this will really help you understand how your life is being
41:29 affected by economic issues so I invite you to tune in again tomorrow at 10: a.m. and then next Monday um is my show trust in Estates weekly 10: am Pacific time and my guest is Paul Dy and Paul is gonna be talking about the five hang on one second I got I gotta tell you this the five myths I'm sorry it's not dty it's it's Paul Doer and it's he's going to be talking about the five myths of probate debunk so I'm looking forward to that because I'm not
42:05 sure I know what the five Miss of probate are um so that that should be a great show with Paul and then seven days from today will be the next edition of business lessons from the military so thanks again for joining me have a wonderful rest of the afternoon and signing off Marie you are my belt all the best folks