{"id":37188,"date":"2015-09-12T19:18:29","date_gmt":"2015-09-12T19:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2015\/09\/12\/editorial-navy-boot-camp-ribbon-must-be-retroactive\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:29:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:29:24","slug":"editorial-navy-boot-camp-ribbon-must-be-retroactive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/opinion\/2015\/09\/12\/editorial-navy-boot-camp-ribbon-must-be-retroactive\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial: Navy boot camp ribbon must be retroactive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Navy\u2019s <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">first <\/span>boot camp ribbon <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">met with jeers when it <\/span>was unveiled in August and promptly met with disdain by sailors and other service members who<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">. Readers<\/span> labeled it <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">&#8220;pathetic&#8221; and warned that the ribbon would turn the Navy into the Air Force. Others called it <\/span>a &#8220;participation award&#8221; illustrative of no legitimate military accomplishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s entirely untrue. <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">Neither looks to be the case.<\/span> The Navy Basic Training Honor Graduate Ribbon is for recruits who excel at boot camp \u2014 only the top three percent of every graduating class. On average that&#8217;s about a dozen<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">XXXXXXXXXX<\/span> individuals<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">[[[SAM, CAN WE APPROXIMATE A NUMBER HERE, OR A RANGE?\/\/A.deG.]]]<\/span>. So the ribbon is exclusive; it recognizes\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">That makes this a recognition of <\/span>excellence, not mere participation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span class=\"rte rte-comment\">And it doesn\u2019t turn the Navy into the other services. <\/span>The Army and the Air Force, by contrast,\u00a0offer ribbons to <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">for <\/span>all <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">those <\/span>who complete basic training. The <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">a move that the <\/span>Navy is wise <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">right <\/span>to have chosen a different path<span class=\"rte rte-comment\"> stay away from<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>Encouraging <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">But encouraging <\/span>excellence at boot camp is good for the entire Navy. It conveys\u00a0to new recruits that their introductory training and education is integral to long-term success and that of the units to which they will be assigned \u2014\u00a0not merely an eight-week\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">[[[CORRECT? EIGHT WEEKS?]]]<\/span>experience to be endured<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">\u00a0&#8216;s a good idea, an effort to turn the culture there into more than a place just to get through on the way to the fleet<\/span>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To underscore this importance, the Navy needs to\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">Still, the new ribbon\u2019s rules need changes. The most pressing is to <\/span>make the ribbon retroactive\u00a0so that all previous honor graduates qualify for it. There are thousands serving who\u2019ve earned this distinction, and many of them would enjoy the chance to add another ribbon to their rack<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">, even if it ranks low on the precedence order<\/span>.\u00a0This <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">Making it retroactive <\/span>would also help promote acceptance throughout <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">the ribbon be more accepted in <\/span>the ranks, where currently\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">it has been mocked. Sailors The ribbon\u2019s challenge isn\u2019t helped by the fact there\u2019s<\/span>only a few <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">half <\/span>dozen <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">or so <\/span>junior sailors actually wear<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">ing<\/span> this ribbon<span class=\"rte rte-comment\"> right now and the most senior of them is, in all likelihood, a seaman<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What\u2019s more, the Navy has offered very poor logic in justifying its decision to not make the award retroactive. The official\u00a0explanation\u00a0\u2014 <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">because <\/span>that\u00a0training standards are constantly evolving \u2014 is offensive to anyone who graduated from boot camp before this ribbon was introduced. As one Navy Times reader correctly surmised, that\u00a0implies\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">holds little water.One reader took issue with officials\u2019 explanation, saying: &#8220;Offense should be taken by those who served prior to August 2015, by the implication that <\/span>&#8220;the standards then were less than today.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The smart course forward is to backdate eligibility so that every honor graduate\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">service should make the honor graduate ribbon retroactive to the inclusion <\/span>of <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">the <\/span>Battle Stations 21<span class=\"rte rte-comment\"> training<\/span>, boot camp&#8217;s <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">[[[CORRECT? THIS IS A BOOT CAMP CAPSTONE?\/\/A.deG.]]] a <\/span>capstone challenge since about 2007<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">XXXXXXXXXX [[[IS THERE A YEAR ASSOCIATED WITH ITS INCLUSION IN THE CURRICULUM?\/\/A.deG.]]]<\/span>, now qualifies for this important recognition<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">\u00a0of the training and teamwork the recruits have learned after eight weeks at boot camp<\/span>. Doing so will\u00a0appropriately honor top performance <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">the best <\/span>and communicate to the entire fleet that\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">That honors the very best and will help make <\/span>this ribbon represents the standard\u00a0to which all recruits should aspire<span class=\"rte rte-comment\"> much more than proof of who is the newest fleet sailor<\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To bolster support for the new ribbon, the Navy should make it retroactive to the inception of Battle Stations 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":48899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":14,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"coauthors":[259],"class_list":["post-37188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"YY6GAZKPNBFOBE7PG4S5GRPDHE","arc_canonical_url":"\/opinion\/2015\/09\/12\/editorial-navy-boot-camp-ribbon-must-be-retroactive\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized 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