American Campaign Medal
President Franklin Roosevelt created the American Campaign Medal as an early entry into the pantheon of the medals of America with an Executive Order on November 6, 1942. This was shortly after his creation of another of the US military medals called the American Defense Service Medal. These military medals were intended to honor the service of Americans who had performed duty in the American theater during WWII. These military ribbons and medals were originally called the American Theater Ribbon, but were later expanded to include military medals with the current American Campaign Medal name. To earn these military awards, a service member from any of the five branches of military service must have performed a year of consecutive duty within the continental borders of the US, which included most of the Atlantic and the coastal Pacific oceans.
The American Campaign Medal was awarded for service between December 7, 1941 and March 2, 1946. It was issued only as military ribbons during WWII, and only issued as military medals in 1947, with the first medal being awarded to General George C. Marshall. Since then, many thousands of Coast Guard and Air Force medals have been earned, and tens of thousand of Navy, Marine Corps and Army medals have also been awarded.
The American Campaign Medal is worn in the position immediately after the American Defense Service Medal, and directly before the Asia Pacific Campaign Medal in the general order of precedence governing the proper placement of all military medals and ribbons for official display on uniforms of United States military personnel.
The American Campaign Medal is generally available as military ribbons, medals, and lapel pins from the several reputable commercial military insignia firms. These military decorations can be worn as traditional slide-on military medals, mini medals and ribbons. Nowadays however, more and more military service personnel are realizing the value to their career goals of always having their uniform decorations looking their best, and have turned to the slimmer and trimmer thin military medals and mini medals and the ultra thin military ribbons to provide them with the smartest looking military award displays possible.
