Mini Medals

[abdsp51]

I have been pitching things around in regards to this.  I plan on procuring a mess dress uniform and I am tossing around wearing just my CAP only mini medals or combing my military and CAP mini medals.  I am steering more towards both, thoughts?

[Майор Хаткевич]

Looking at your signature that's a lot of medals.

I'm of the opinion that we should just wear CAP ribbons on CAP uniforms, but I can understand why some veterans/service members choose to wear theirs.

[Critical AOA]

How often does the average CAP member wear mess dress? 

[Stonewall]

I voted "only CAP mini medals".  However, I am anti-mess dress in CAP.  As a volunteer (unpaid) member who does believe in the importance of military uniforms in CAP, I believe offering mess dress as an option for formal wear encourages members who often can't afford even the basic uniforms to spend a lot of money on a uniform they may wear once a year.

I believe in uniformity in CAP, yet I have never been to a CAP event where everyone was in mess dress. There are the non-uniform wearers, but then you have those who wear service dress because that's what they have. Thus, a lack of uniformity.

I don't even own a CAP service dress and as a senior NCO in the Air Guard I don't own mess dress.  In short, I think mess dress is a very unnecessary uniform in CAP.

[Garibaldi]

I voted "only CAP mini medals".  However, I am anti-mess dress in CAP.  As a volunteer (unpaid) member who does believe in the importance of military uniforms in CAP, I believe offering mess dress as an option for formal wear encourages members who often can't afford even the basic uniforms to spend a lot of money on a uniform they may wear once a year.

I believe in uniformity in CAP, yet I have never been to a CAP event where everyone was in mess dress. There are the non-uniform wearers, but then you have those who wear service dress because that's what they have. Thus, a lack of uniformity.

I don't even own a CAP service dress and as a senior NCO in the Air Guard I don't own mess dress.  In short, I think mess dress is a very unnecessary uniform in CAP.

Heartily agree. A uniform...an OPTIONAL uniform...costing in excess of $300 with all the bibs and bobs that I may or may not wear enough to justify the cost? No thanks. I'll pass on the event entirely or rent a tux if that's what's required. I also have yet to attend an event formal enough to warrant one.

[Eclipse]

Standard service dress doesn't cost much less.  The jacket alone is $160.

Regardless, I'm on the side of just wearing CAP stuff on CAP uniforms.

[Stonewall]

Standard service dress doesn't cost much less.  The jacket alone is $160.

I agree with you, so since I haven't yet spent $160 on service dress, I'll be [darn]ed if I'm gonna drop $300 more for mess dress,

[PHall]

I wear a reduced number of CAP mini medals and my four AF individual medals ( MSM, Aerial Ach Medal, AF Comm, AF Achievement).
Totals out to 16. Which looks nice without looking like a South American Dictator.

[The CyBorg is destroyed]

Standard service dress doesn't cost much less.  The jacket alone is $160.

Except that you can find service dress used in base thrift shops, Evilbay, etc., and I can only remember one time seeing AF mess dress on Evilbay.

I wanted to wear mess dress to get married in, but no way could we afford it...to do so would have meant that my lovely bride not have a nice wedding dress.  That was more important to me than having mess dress.  I got married in my service dress, and the photos we had taken that day show that it looked just fine (not to mention I had more hair and it was less grey).

I don't see myself ever getting mess dress...because I doubt I would ever NEED it, and there are more important things for me to spend that chunk of change on.

[Eclipse]

Except that you can find service dress used in base thrift shops, Evilbay, etc., and I can only remember one time seeing AF mess dress on Evilbay.

You don't set uniform policy based on whether or not there's a secondary market available.

For the record, they are on eBay all the time.

[Dad2-4]

I wear both, seeing that I only have 3 USAF medals. BTW, I bought my mess dress on Ebay, for $60, including the jacket, pants, cumerbund, and tie. A little more invested for tailoring, the enameled emblem, sleeve braid, shoulder boards, and mini medals brings the whole thing to under $150.

[abdsp51]

Ok, was looking on thoughts for the  dec wear not the cost or usefullness of the uniform.....

[LGM30GMCC]

As an AD Captain I can say I have almost exactly the reverse of your situation in terms of CAP 'medals' vs Military Medals.

5 USAF, 15 CAP.

I'm also not a very large guy so I have limited chest real estate. My personal choice on both my service dress and mess dress is I only wear my CAP awards. The only USAF specific stuff I wear on my CAP uniforms is my missile badge (bit of a conversation piece) and occasionally my Spings or Parachutist badge.

My recommendation would be to wear CAP awards on your CAP uniform and your occupational badge. But it is truly a personal choice. I do get a little irked from time to time when I see folks wearing only their military badges and no CAP stuff. It's their personal choice and so I tend to keep my mouth shut, but hey.

[Майор Хаткевич]

It's always a little...odd to see 15-20 Military awards and 3 CAP ribbons.

Just throws off the perception.

[MSgt Van]

I never understood why every cap award (I haven't researched this in detail) is represented by a medal. So unlike the parent USAF. Distinct difference between awards and decorations in the Air Force.

[Garibaldi]

I'm also not a very large guy so I have limited chest real estate. My personal choice on both my service dress and mess dress is I only wear my CAP awards. The only USAF specific stuff I wear on my CAP uniforms is my missile badge (bit of a conversation piece) and occasionally my Spings or Parachutist badge.

Why am I getting an image of a little cartoon military guy with a silver steel pot that covers his entire head with a chest full of medals and a sash with more? 

[Pylon]

For me, I have a set of both military + CAP mounted by Ultrathin.  It doesn't force me to keep two sets of medals that I wouldn't otherwise have to by mixing them, because I don't wear miniature medals in the Marines anyway (full-size, yes).

To avoid the chest-full-of-medals look, I have Ultrathin mount them in the wider (rows of 6 or 7, I think) allowable arrangement (instead of too-many rows of 4) and then opt for (per the regs) up to 50% overlap of each medal.  When they're mounted and not just hanging from slide bars, you can actually compact your rack quite nicely by having medals overlap.

[LGM30GMCC]

I'm also not a very large guy so I have limited chest real estate. My personal choice on both my service dress and mess dress is I only wear my CAP awards. The only USAF specific stuff I wear on my CAP uniforms is my missile badge (bit of a conversation piece) and occasionally my Spings or Parachutist badge.

Why am I getting an image of a little cartoon military guy with a silver steel pot that covers his entire head with a chest full of medals and a sash with more? 

What can I say? I'm 5'6" 130ish lbs. But I've been in CAP for close to 15 years and between my cadet time and senior time have picked up quite a stack. The area between the lapel on my jacket and the side seam is just about 4 mini-medals wide. On my service jacket I cannot go to 4 across.

As to the whole 'Why is every CAP award a mini-medal?' question the best I can come up with is because we only have 3 decorations. Maybe someday they can go through and prune it down but I suspect that would upset a lot of people.

[Eclipse]

It's always a little...odd to see 15-20 Military awards and 3 CAP ribbons.

Just throws off the perception.

Misses the point IMHO - the jelly beans are supposed to tell a relevant story to the viewer - shorthand resume of
relevant service.

A Major with 3 CAP ribbons mixed in with 5 rows of military ribbons (or worse, no CAP decs) means one or more of the following:

1) Little to no CAP experience whatsoever and grade was conferred via military equivalence.

2) The wearer can't be bothered to update or create a CAP stack.

3) It's really important to the wearer that everyone knows about their military service.

4) Wearer hasn't done much of anything in CAP.

This has nothing to do with respect for the service, or whether the previous service experience is relevant / valuable to
CAP, and everything to do with just being a member of CAP and accepting that for what it is.

[Garibaldi]

I'm also not a very large guy so I have limited chest real estate. My personal choice on both my service dress and mess dress is I only wear my CAP awards. The only USAF specific stuff I wear on my CAP uniforms is my missile badge (bit of a conversation piece) and occasionally my Spings or Parachutist badge.

Why am I getting an image of a little cartoon military guy with a silver steel pot that covers his entire head with a chest full of medals and a sash with more? 

What can I say? I'm 5'6" 130ish lbs. But I've been in CAP for close to 15 years and between my cadet time and senior time have picked up quite a stack. The area between the lapel on my jacket and the side seam is just about 4 mini-medals wide. On my service jacket I cannot go to 4 across.

As to the whole 'Why is every CAP award a mini-medal?' question the best I can come up with is because we only have 3 decorations. Maybe someday they can go through and prune it down but I suspect that would upset a lot of people.

Yeah. 5'6" too, but only 11 ribbons and a GT badge after 19 years. I suspect that someone along the line had the idea that we needed a ribbon for just about everything, like the BSA and their merit badges.