So if you think back to the spring of 1996, there
was this massive tragedy involving the highest
ranking officer in the United States Navy. Right,
a four -star admiral. Exactly. A man who had
literally dedicated his entire adult life to
serving his country took his own life. And the
catalyst for this wasn't some huge failure of
command in wartime or a scandal with state secrets.
No, not at all. The media investigation that
allegedly drove him to this act was focused entirely
on two pieces of stamped metal on his uniform.
Just two tiny pins. Yeah, pieces of metal that
are, you know, essentially one quarter of an
inch tall. It's wild. It completely forces a
recalibration of how we think about military
honors. Oh, absolutely. I mean, we usually assume
the weight of a medal is tied to its physical
grandeur, right? Like a heavy gold medallion
or a brightly colored ribbon draped around a
hero's neck at some sweeping public ceremony.
Yeah, the movie version of an award. Exactly.
But the object at the center of that 1996 tragedy
is incredibly easy to miss. It is simply a tiny
capital letter V with serifs on the top edges,
and it's just pinned directly onto the fabric
of a service ribbon. Which is the exact mission
for today's deep dive. Welcome, everyone. We
are pulling from a really fascinating Wikipedia
article that details the history, the Byzantine
regulations, and the profound controversy surrounding
the United States military's V device. It is
a dense history. It really is. We're going to
explore how this microscopic object holds immense
emotional weight, why it sparked a national tragedy,
and how it eventually forced this massive, reluctant
standardization across the entire United States
Armed Forces. Right. And whether you have a military
background or not, this is really a master class
in how huge organizations try and sometimes fatally
fail to categorize the ultimate human extreme
of combat heroism. Completely. Okay. So what
does this all mean? To understand how a quarter
-inch letter V becomes the center of institutional
chaos, we have to look at its mechanical function
first. Yeah, the mechanism is entirely about
distinction. I mean, the V -device was invented
to solve a specific administrative problem. Which
was? Well, how do you distinguish a decoration
awarded for combat valor and heroism from the
exact same decoration awarded for non -combat
meritorious service? You don't want to design
an entirely new medal, right? So you create a
modifier. You know, it reminds me of a shifted
decimal point in a financial ledger. Oh, that's
a good way to look at it. Yeah, like you look
at a number, say 1 ,000, you shift that tiny
dot just one space to the right, and suddenly
you're looking at 10 ,000. Right, the physical
ink used to make that dot is negligible. Exactly.
But the real world value of the entire equation
just exploded. The V -device basically does that
to a metal. It completely recontextualizes the
entire narrative of the award. It does. But the
complication is that the branches of the military
they treat their specific cultures like sovereign
nations. Well, for sure. And that friction started
immediately with what to actually call this modifier.
The Department of Defense, the Army, and the
Air Force use the straightforward term. They
just call it the V -device. Simple enough. Right.
But the Coast Guard, leaning into the meaning
behind the letter, officially refers to it as
the Valor device. OK, that makes sense too. But
then the Navy and the Marine Corps They have
to be different. They call it the Combat Distinguishing
Device, or sometimes the Combat V. Of course
they do. But regardless of the name, the actual
origin story of this pin is just a logistical
nightmare. Oh, completely. According to the source,
the device was officially introduced on December
22nd, 1945 through War Department Circular 383,
and originally it was just for the Army to use
on the Bronze Star Medal. Just the Army, right?
Yeah. Then the Department of the Navy adopted
it a few months later in February 1946 for the
Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit. But the
timing of this is just staggering. December 1945.
The ink is barely dry on the Japanese surrender
documents. I mean, you have millions of service
members in the middle of a massive unprecedented
demobilization. Right. The war's over. Yeah.
The largest military force in human history is
packing up its gear, turning in its weapons and
just... trying to secure a train ticket back
to civilian life. They just want to go home.
Exactly. A new uniform regulation published in
a war department circular was the absolute last
thing on the minds of the GIs who had just survived
the European or Pacific theaters. So the vast
majority of World War II veterans who were actually
entitled to wear this brand new V device left
the military having no idea it even existed.
Not at all. They certainly didn't know they had
to navigate some bureaucratic process to apply
for one. And reading the source material, the
irony runs even deeper because the military didn't
even have the physical inventory to issue these
devices. This raises an important question about
what happens when an award's prestige outpaces
the administrative reality of giving it out.
Yeah, how does that even happen? Well, they engineered
a profound symbol of combat valor but entirely
failed to anticipate the manufacturing pipeline.
Wow. It took at least a year after that initial
1945 Army circular was published. before the
military had sufficient stock to put the devices
in the hands of the troops. A whole year? Yeah.
They created a profound symbol of the war's ultimate
heroism, but introduced it at the exact moment
the heroes were walking out the door. That is
just, it's wild. And that messy post -World War
II rollout really set a precedent for administrative
confusion, didn't it? It absolutely did. But
the ambiguity surrounding this tiny piece of
metal didn't just cause paperwork headaches,
it evolved into a legal blind spot. Which brings
us back to the tragedy we touched on at the start
of this deep dive. Right, the 1996 death of Admiral
Jeremy Borda. As the chief of naval operations,
he was the professional head of the Navy. I mean,
he had joined as an enlisted sailor and spent
decades climbing to the absolute pinnacle of
naval leadership. A completely incredible career.
Unbelievable. And the Newsweek story that was
about to break, which prompted the media investigation
into his uniform, alleged that he was wearing
two combat valor pins that he had not legitimately
earned. Specifically, he wore a V on his Navy
Commendation Medal and another on his Navy Achievement
Medal. Right. And these were awards he received
for his service during the Vietnam War, where
he served as a weapons officer and an executive
officer aboard naval vessels operating off the
coast of Indokaina. Which was obviously a dangerous
assignment. Absolutely. Now, I have to look at
this from the outside and ask the obvious question
here. Go for it. How does the chief of naval
operations make a mistake like that? I mean,
this is a man whose entire life is dictated by
naval regulations. He knows the uniform manual
backward and forward. You really have to look
at the postmortem conducted by the Department
of the Navy Board for correction of naval records
to see just how treacherous the regulations were.
Okay. What did they find? Well, after his suicide,
they reviewed Admiral Bordo's file to determine
if the media allegations were accurate. And they
found that there were actually indications within
his file that those combat distinguishing devices
were authorized. Wait, really? So he didn't just
make it up? No, not at all. It wasn't a case
of a man simply buying pins at a uniform shop
and fabricating a war record out of thin air.
He had reason to believe he earned them. But
the board ultimately concluded that he was not
officially authorized to wear them, right? They
did. And that's because of the mechanism of authorization.
The strict underlying rule of the V -device is
that the physical pin itself is irrelevant if
the accompanying paperwork isn't flawless. Ah,
paperwork. It always comes down to paperwork.
Always. The written award citation, the narrative
document that explains why the medal is being
given, must specifically and explicitly authorize
the V. The environment doesn't grant the device,
the paperwork does. So the actual combat doesn't
matter as much as the typo on the form? Essentially
yes. You could be awarded a commendation medal
while actively taking fire on a ship off the
coast of Vietnam. But if the typed citation doesn't
explicitly mention the combat distinguishing
device, pinning it on your chest is a violation
of regulations. That is just a devastating reality.
It really is. A man serves his country at the
highest level and his legacy, his integrity,
his very life becomes entangled in the subjective
interpretation of a typed citation from decades
prior. It strips away the illusion that military
ribbons are just colorful uniform dressing. It
really does. That quarter inch pin carries an
immense crushing psychological weight. In that
culture, it literally defines your honor. And
when an institution anchors a person's ultimate
worth to a physical symbol, the rules governing
that symbol must be absolute. The tragedy of
Admiral Borda highlighted a terrifying truth,
which was that the rules were not absolute. Across
the Department of Defense, they were dangerously
ambiguous. The Borda tragedy proved that the
rules were lethal if misinterpreted. But the
real shock in the source material isn't just
that the Navy's rules were confusing. No, it
gets worse. It's that if Borda had served in
the Army or the Air Force, his uniform would
have been governed by entirely different realities.
Until 2017, the criteria for earning a V -device
was basically the Wild West. It truly was. The
branches essentially operated with their own
distinct definitions of what constituted valor.
Which is crazy for one single military. Right.
The Army maintained the most rigid standard.
For an army soldier, the V -device was authorized
solely to denote participation in acts of heroism
involving conflict with an armed enemy. OK. Acts
of heroism. Yes. The key phrase is acts of heroism.
It required a specific individual action in a
fight. Which makes sense. It's clean. It's definitive.
But then you look at the Navy, the Marine Corps,
and the Coast Guard. Totally different story.
Yeah, their manual stated the device could be
warranted to know heroism, yes, but it could
also be awarded to recognize individuals who
were simply exposed to personal hazard during
direct participation in combat operations. They
shifted the criteria from a specific action to
the general environment. Exactly. And the Air
Force expanded the parameters even further. Oh,
the Air Force regulations were fascinating. On
their Bronze Star, the V denoted combat heroism.
But on their Commendation and Achievement medals...
An airman could be awarded the V for heroism
or simply for being placed in harm's way during
contingency deployment operations. OK, let's
unpack this because I have to challenge the logic
of that old Air Force criteria. Go ahead. Isn't
being placed in harm's way essentially the baseline
job description of the military? You would think
so, yes. Right. If you were deployed to a contingency
operation in a combat theater, you are, by definition,
in harm's way. Awarding a specific combat valor
device just for showing up to a dangerous deployment
seems to entirely defeat the purpose of the Army's
strict definition. You're rewarding the zip code,
not the action. Exactly. I'll play devil's advocate
for a moment because you have to consider the
nature of modern aerial warfare. Okay, fair enough.
An air base might be located hundreds of miles
from the traditional front line, but it is still
subjected to random Scud missile attacks or mortar
fire. or consider an air crew flying a cargo
mission deep into enemy airspace. Right, they're
definitely in danger. They might not engage in
a cinematic dogfight, but the environmental risk
is catastrophic. So the Air Force felt that specific
environmental exposure warranted distinction.
But the inevitable result is dilution. I mean,
if everyone on that base who experiences a mortar
attack gets a V device on their commendation
medal, how do you visually distinguish the airmen
who ran out onto the tarmac under direct fire
to pull a wounded pilot from a burning jet? What's
fascinating here is you can't. The visual language
of the uniform breaks down entirely. Which is
exactly the problem. And it wasn't just the Air
Force individual deployments causing this dilution.
Prior to 2014, the military was authorizing the
V -device on outstanding unit awards and organizational
excellence awards. Wait, for whole units? Yes,
simply to indicate that an entire unit participated
in direct combat support actions. Furthermore,
all the branches were using the device on the
air medal to denote participation in annual combat
missions, regardless of specific individual heroic
acts. Which is why the Pentagon finally had to
step in. The inconsistencies were destroying
the prestige of the award. They really were.
So on January 6, 2016, the Department of Defense
announced a massive sweeping revision to its
military decorations and awards program. They
instituted a universal reversion back to the
original 1940s intent. A total reset. Yeah. From
that day forward, the V -device would be used
strictly to denote heroism in combat, period.
across all branches. They eliminated exposed
to hazard, they eliminated placed in harm's way.
And the Coast Guard aligned their regulations
with this new DoD standard in August of 2016.
This strict definition created an immediate vacuum.
What do you mean? Well, the military still had
thousands of service members doing incredible
dangerous work in combat zones work that involved
extreme hazard but didn't quite meet the stringent
legal definition of heroic valor. Oh right, like
the person navigating a minefield or the drone
operator orchestrating a strike from thousands
of miles away. You still need to recognize the
reality of their deployment on their service
record without muddying the waters of the V -device.
The Department of Defense saws this in March
2017 by introducing two entirely new devices.
OK, what were they? They created the C device
to note meritorious service or achievement performed
under combat conditions. This effectively absorbed
the Navy's old exposed to hazard criteria. That's
smart. And they introduced the R device to denote
remote impacts on combat operations, which was
specifically tailored for the modern era of drone
warfare and cyber operations. It's an elegant
solution. It categorizes the specific nature
of the service while building a protective wall
around the V -device. It really is. And to reinforce
that wall, in December 2016, the DoD entirely
removed the authorization for the V -device to
be worn on achievement medals. They also stopped
authorizing it for the Legion of Merit, replacing
it retroactively with the new C -device. And
once the Department of Defense finally synchronized
the meaning of the device, they immediately set
about updating the visual aesthetics of the device
itself. Because in the military the uniform is
a resume spoken without words. Every millimeter
of ribbon space is codified. This is where the
intricacies become truly obsessive. Oh, I bet.
Prior to 2017, the V was just a bronze letter.
But in February 2017, the military introduced
silver -plated and gold -plated V devices. Then,
in September of that same year, they introduced
wreath versions of those devices. They basically
constructed a highly specific, tiered visual
system to indicate when a service member earns
multiple awards of the same medal with valor.
To understand the complexity, we need to look
at how the military denotes multiple awards in
general. Because the military doesn't issue you
three separate Bronze Star medals to pin side
by side on your chest. No, that would take up
way too much space. Right. You wear one ribbon
representing the Bronze Star. If you're in a
second one, you attach a tiny metal modifier
to that single ribbon. And of course, the branches
can agree on what that modifier should be. The
Army, Air Force, and Space Force use oak leaf
clusters, which are these tiny bronze or silver
metallic twigs. The Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast
Guard use little 5 16th inch metal stars. The
visual hierarchy of the modern V device has to
integrate with those clusters and stars. The
2019 Air Force uniform regulations map it out
perfectly. Your first award with Valor gets the
standard bronze V. Your second award upgrades
to a silver V. your third award is a gold V.
It's very systematic. Right. And if someone is
performing at such a staggering level of consistent
heroism that they earn a fourth, fifth, or sixth
award with valor on the exact same medal, they
move into the wreathed tier. A bronze V with
a wreath for the fourth award, silver with a
wreath for the fifth, and gold with a wreath
for the sixth. But the placement of these letters
on the ribbon is where inter -service rivalry
really shows its teeth. Oh, they stubbornly refuse
to standardize the aesthetics. The Army, Air
Force, and Space Force dictate that the V device
must be positioned to the right of any oak leaf
clusters from the wearer's perspective. If it's
the only device on the ribbon, it sits dead center.
Okay, that makes spatial sense. And they enforce
a strict maximum of four devices per ribbon.
If a soldier owns more than four devices, they
are required to wear a second, identical ribbon
immediately to the left just to hold the overflow.
It's an accountant's approach to heroism. Truly.
Meanwhile, the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast
Guard treat the placement as sacred geometry.
For sailors and Marines, the V -device is always
worn dead center on the service ribbon. No exceptions.
Not a single exception. They then add their five
sixteenth -inch stars in balance, flanked to
the right and left of that centered V, starting
with the right side from the wearer's perspective.
It's a total refusal to adopt the Army's visual
language, even after the DoD forced them to adopt
the Army's definition of valor. It highlights
the deep cultural friction between the branches.
The primary decorations currently eligible for
the V -device across the entire military are
the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star
Medal, the Air Medal, and the Commendation Medals.
But here's where it gets really interesting.
Oh, the Medal of Honor anomaly. Yes. This is
a wild footnote in military regulations. In 2011,
the Department of Defense updated its overarching
awards manual to plan for an incredibly specific
scenario. So specific. What happens if a service
member, having already received the Medal of
Honor, performs a second entirely distinct act
of unimaginable heroism that justifies a second
Medal of Honor? It's hard to even fathom, but
the 2011 manual stated they would not receive
a second physical medal. Instead, they would
be issued a V -device to pin onto the ribbon
of their first Medal of Honor. The idea of pinning
a V -device onto a Medal of Honor is structurally
absurd. I mean, the Medal of Honor is, by definition,
the ultimate valor award. Modifying it with a
valor device is like putting a label on the sun
that says, hot. That's the perfect way to describe
it. And clearly, someone at the Pentagon eventually
realized this, because by May 2015, they completely
reversed course. They updated the manual again,
scrapping the V -device idea entirely for the
Medal of Honor. The new regulation stated that
a separate physical Medal of Honor would be presented
for each succeeding act. Which makes a lot more
sense. But the irony of this four -year policy
flip -flop is that the Pentagon bureaucrats were
arguing over ghosts. Right. There has not been
a living repeat Medal of Honor recipient since
the World War I era. So despite the intense regulatory
debate, no living person ever actually or the
V device on a Medal of Honor. It was a purely
theoretical argument over a quarter inch piece
of metal. When you step back and look at the
trajectory of this deep dive, the obsession with
this tiny object is profound. It really is. I
mean, we started in the chaotic aftermath of
World War II with a bronze letter that the military
literally couldn't manufacture fast enough to
give to its departing heroes. We saw how the
ambiguous rules surrounding that symbol fueled
a media investigation that ended the life of
the chief of naval operations. And then we watched
the branches fight for decades over what the
word valor even meant until the Pentagon finally
forced them to agree. Resulting in this incredibly
complex tiered system of reef gold and silver.
If we connect this to the bigger picture, it
reveals a fundamental human compulsion. How so?
We don't just want to recognize sacrifice. We
want to meticulously categorize it. We want to
measure the exact distance between being in harm's
way and charging into the fire, and we want to
display that measurement on our chests. It proves
that the physical dimensions of an object have
zero correlation to the gravity of its meaning.
A quarter -inch piece of stamped metal can hold
the entire weight of a person's legacy. And that
reality isn't confined to the military. The intense
life and death focus on this one specific pin
makes you analyze the architecture of your own
environment. Oh, for sure. If a tiny letter V
can dictate the honor, identity, and ultimate
worth of the highest ranking officers in the
armed forces, what seemingly invisible symbols,
titles, or metrics in our civilian lives are
secretly dictating our own sense of value, completely
unquestioned. We really do let the smallest modifiers
change our entire narrative, hiding in plain
sight. Keep that in mind next time you look at
the little labels we place on ourselves and others.
Thanks for exploring this deep dive with us,
and we'll catch you next time.