USS Carney Sailors awarded the Combat Action Ribbon
For the USS Carney’s role in shooting down missiles and drones in the Red Sea, its crew received the Combat Action Ribbon (CAR). Five Sailors also received medals for their performance with shooting these missiles and drones. In 2017, Sailors stationed on board the USS Mason, USS Nitze, USS Ponce, and USS San Antonio received the CAR after being fired upon by Houthi rebels.
From the Military Times:
Carney’s commanding officer, Cmdr. Jeremy Robertson, and another unidentified sailor received Navy Commendation medals from Cooper, while three other crew members received Navy and Marine Corps Achievement medals.
The entire crew also received the combat action ribbon, or CAR for short, an honor rarely bestowed on Navy crews in modern times.
Sailors aboard fellow destroyers Mason and Nitze, as well as the amphibious transport docks Ponce and San Antonio, received the ribbon in 2017, after they were fired upon by Houthi rebels.
Before that, no crew had received the distinction since the 1991 Gulf War.
Since October, Carney been at the forefront of operations to take out Houthi drones and missiles in the economically vital Red Sea, as commercial vessels have repeatedly come under attack by the Iran allies as the Israel-Hamas war continues to rage.
The Military Times has additional information here.
Category: International Affairs, Navy
I have no qualms with this and say that it’s good for the crew. Like the Army’s Combat Action Badge, the CAR seems to be awarded for being under hostile fire or actively attacked. The source page is down, but Wikipedia shows that the crew of the USS Cole received CARs a year after that attack: Combat Action Ribbon – Wikipedia.
This does raise the question of how serious are things really getting over there?
With the CAB you are supposed to be “engaged by or engage the enemy”. The CAR requires more than getting shot at, but also a response.
I am very much in favor of a CAR for all members of a crewed ship that engages in combat. They sink or swim together and even the galley participates in the fight. I’m not really in favor of a CAB for everyone on a base that gets shelled, especially if they were in no real danger. However I did see that happen a couple of times. Not often, but often enough to be disappointed by some.
You’re right in that the CAR requires “active participation”. 1650.1.pdf (navy.mil) I took the lazy way out and just checked Wikipedia earlier. The “sink or swim together” is good reasoning for CARs to be awarded to all crew members.
I never saw blanket awards of the CAB, but I did see CIBs awarded for IDF, and in 2003, those were also blanket awarded. We had new Soldier who injured his ankle and never left the wire. Some of the E-4 Mafia had the locals embroider a Combat Crutch badge for him. The PL that took over with a month or two left was a great guy but never got involved in a firefight. Didn’t matter, CIB and BSM for his few weeks of patrolling.
That sounds very weird to me. My CIB is from 2007, and the first time it was submitted it was denied because even though we, as in myself and rest of my fellow squad members, had smoked six enemy fighters in a clear night, we were never under enemy fire. I only got it accepted after our second fight. That was week one in Iraq during the surge.
During my deployments CIBs were always, always, awarded individually, and pinned on all recipients at the same time at the end of the deployment in a ceremony in a Battalion formation. That’s from where the confusion comes with some people claiming it was a blanket award on all deployers, despite the CIB being submitted and approved on an individual basis, though pinned at the same time.
But then, I don’t know how much that varied from brigade to brigade.
Never saw a blanket award for the CIB.
Might be a few dudes at the same time, but never a blanket.
I hear ya. The JAG officer who demands and gets his CAB for being 195 meters from a indirect fire impact (“within 200 m” the standard goes) made me not claim such unless I got hit or knocked down or the building I was in got hit. Been fired upon more closely, but I couldn’t respectably say CAB in front of a guy or girl who got their arm or leg blown-off.
Depending on rank, hearing a gunshot in a designated combat zone qualifies you for a CAB.
Word.
With drool face shit pant, probably a lot worse.
“This guy had the right idea– he wore the brown pants!” –Deadpool
Ward Carroll is a stand-up dude. Here the latest “gouge” on recent Middle East happenings.
Bringing Hellfire and damnation to pirates everywhere.
Combat Ribbon…but you weren’t allowed to shoot back.
More like a Target Ribbon.
Declare a Weapons Free, Fire on Targets of Opportunity, Free Fire Zone, and let everybody get themselves a ribbon.
Can’t do that. It might make the enemy complain.
Houthi and the Blowfish, Rocking in the Free World Ribbon, no bag limit!
Good for them. Well earned.
John Kerry endorses these awards.
I wonder how far he could throw them.
Seeing how they are “someone else’s medals”… pretty damn far.
Did John Kerry drop in to down vote you 😏
Earned it in the 80’s
Bad Fucking Ass.
Sapper3307, you win the day!