1 – Purple Heart
“Being wounded or killed in any action against an enemy of the United States or as a result of an act of any such enemy or opposing armed forces”2 – Presidential Unit Citation (speculative)
“Gallantry, determination, and esprit de corps in accomplishing its mission under extremely difficult and hazardous conditions.”3 – Army Commendation Medal
Awarded for heroism, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service.4 – Army Achievement Medal
“Meritorious service or achievement in either combat or noncombat situations based on sustained performance or specific achievement of a superlative nature but which does not warrant a Commendation Medal or higher.”5 – Army NCO Professional Development
Issued by the U.S. Army for completion of any prescribed non-commissioned officer development courses.6 – Antarctica Service Medal (speculative)
To qualify for the Antarctica Service Medal, personnel must train or serve between fifteen and thirty days stationed on the Antarctic continent.7 – Drill Instructor Medal (speculative)
Recognizes those personnel who have successfully trained and qualified as Drill Instructors.8 – National Defense Service Medal
Military service during periods of national emergency or any other periods designated by the Secretary of Defense. (NOTE: McCree is also wearing one of these in the full picture.)9 – Expeditionary Medal (speculative)
Landed on foreign territory and engaged in operations against armed opposition, or operated under circumstances which, after full consideration, shall be deemed to merit special recognition and for which service no campaign medal has been awarded.10 – Distinguished Service Cross
Extraordinary heroism not justifying the Medal of Honor; and the act or acts of heroism must have been so notable and have involved risk of life so extraordinary as to set the individual apart from his or her comrades.11 – Meritorious Service
Award may be for meritorious performance while serving in a staff position as a field grade officer, senior chief warrant officer, or senior non-commissioned officer, or, in the case of field grade officers, for successful completion of a command tour at the battalion level.‘Speculative’ here means there’s no direct match, but there are similar matches in the same vein (e.g. other expeditionary awards with a corresponding coloring or pattern scheme). Allowing that awards are added, retired, and changed, any of the speculative entries may be entirely fictional and reflect future conflicts.
A few thoughts:
* I’d float the Outstanding Volunteer Service Award as an alternative possibility for #6, rather than the Antarctica Service Medal.
* Assuming Blizzard/the artist is actually making an effort at this, I’d suggest that #2 is more likely to be a fictional award than the Presidential Unit Citation. That should be worn on the right breast and doesn’t look anything like this. In fact there are no medals anywhere in the US Armed Forces–or the UN, or NATO–that look like anything like that.
* Interesting fact #1: The NCO Professional Development Ribbon would mean Jack took training to become a sergeant. See more below on why this could be significant.
* Interesting fact #2: Military medals are worn in a strict order of precedence. The Distinguished Service Cross and Meritorious Service medal SHOULD be the first two medals at the top left. But his lapel would probably hide them, so the artist might’ve tacked them onto the end. The Distinguished Service Cross in particular is a big deal and it’d be a shame for fans to be unable to see it and be suitably impressed.
* Interesting fact #3: you can’t see them on Jack’s uniform, but Lena, Gabriel and the others are each wearing two US military unit citations on their right breast. These are awarded to military units rather than individuals, and all members of the unit wear them. The purple/blue one is the US Presidential Unit Citation, an award presented to units of the US military and allied countries for extraordinary heroism in combat. The red one is the US Army Meritorious Unit Commendation, which is awarded for outstanding devotion and superior performance. Since everyone we can see is wearing both of these, we can probably figure they were presented to Overwatch as a unit.
Anyway, military medals mean things. So Jack’s medals tell us a few things, assuming of course that we can trust that Blizzard made an effort here and is exercising some consistency:
1: Jack is DEFINITELY US Army, because these are specifically US Army medals.
2: Jack DEFINITELY started as enlisted rather than a commissioned officer, because he has medals specifically given to enlisted members.
(Fun fact about the Strike Commander skin: those chevrons on his shoulder plates are an obsolete version of corporal’s stripes.)
The reason this matters is because you don’t progress automatically from enlisted/NCO ranks to commissioned officer ranks. They are totally separate, and to make the jump, you have to go through specific additional training. You also have to have a college degree. You don’t have to have a degree to enlist, but you do need one to be an officer, so if you enlisted without going to college, you would’ve had to get a degree while in the service–which the US armed forces do offer as a professional development option, but it takes at least as much time as it would if you were taking classes as a regular student.
In turn, this means that assuming Gabriel was in fact an officer (he’s said to have been a ‘senior officer,’ but in the same sentence they also made a big deal of him being a veteran, which is just another way of saying he’s in the military), then Jack being put in charge of Overwatch instead of him is a real doozy of a move. AT BEST, Jack became a commissioned officer far more recently than Gabriel and is almost certainly significantly below him in rank. At worst, they chose a non-commissioned officer over an experienced commissioned officer to run Overwatch, which is just…I don’t even know. Beyond bizarre, I assume. It would just not happen in the US military. I have no idea how the UN picks its military leadership.
Of course, all of this requires the assumption that these medals are more than just one artist’s personal desire to use accurate references.
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2lYHaNg