The Air Force Expeditionary Service Ribbon (AFESR) is a military award of the United States Air Force which was first created in June 2003. The ribbon is awarded to any member of the Air Force who completes a standard contingency deployment.
The regulations of the Air Force Expeditionary Service Ribbon define a deployment as either forty-five consecutive days or ninety non-consecutive days in a deployed status. Temporary duty orders also qualify towards the ninety-day time requirement. For deployments exceeding 45–90 days, a single Air Force Expeditionary Service Ribbon will be awarded for the entire time frame rather than issuing multiple awards for the same period of deployed service.
For those service members who serve in designated combat zones (those receiving hostile fire pay) while deployed (with or without actually participating in actual combat), a gold frame, which the Air Force refers to as a gold border, may be attached to the AFESR basic ribbon. The gold border is issued as a one-time award only, regardless of the number of combat operations in which a service member is involved.
The Air Force Expeditionary Service Ribbon with gold border may also be awarded to certain "over-the horizon" combat assignments, such as remotely piloted vehicle operators for employing a long-range weapon into a combat zone. It is therefore possible to earn the gold border even when stationed at a secure military installation in the United States geographically separated from the battlefield by thousands of miles. Such personnel, however, must have first earned the Air Force Expeditionary Service Ribbon before the ribbon can be upgraded with a gold border.
Additional awards of the Air Force Expeditionary Service Ribbon are denoted by oak leaf clusters and the award is retroactive to October 1, 1999.
Read more about Air Force Expeditionary Service Ribbon: Symbolism
Famous quotes containing the words air force, air, force, service and/or ribbon:
“I remember when I was first assigned to jets. I said to the colonel, “Colonel, I joined this man’s air force to fly an airplane. But nobody’s gonna hitch me to no Roman candle.””
—Kurt Neumann (1906–1958)
“The air was clear. He seemed in ultimate peace
Except that he had no eyes. Rigid and bright
Upon the forehead, furred
With a light frost, crouched an outrageous bird.”
—Anthony Hecht (b. 1923)
“Yet time and space are but inverse measures of the force of the soul. The spirit sports with time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The gods’ service is tolerable, man’s intolerable.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“perpetually crouched, quivering, upon the
sternly allotted sandpile
Mhow silently
emit a tiny violet flavoured nuisance: Odor?
o no.
comes out like a ribbon lies flat on the brush”
—E.E. (Edward Estlin)