Bronze star (campaign) versus the Bronze Star medal

[CaptO]

Of course, now that I have looked at again, this rack HAS to be wrong. The first campaign that a campaign star was awarded for began 15 March 1962 (the Ides of March) for "Vietnam Advisory Campaign. He has three stars so clearly there would have been a star an his National Defense. Of course there are active duty folks who is see today that should have a star on it and don't. Or even more common, I will see an Operation Iraqi Freedom Medal with no campaign stars. The regulations are that every campaign you were in gets a star so the minimum you would have is one. Prior to the creation of the OIF medal, you got the GWOT (Global War on Terror - remember that?) Campaign Medal, which is what I received. You could trade it in for the OIF Medal (I didn't) for a while. If I had, I would have gotten two stars for being there over two time periods in the 9 months I was in country. It confuses a lot of people. I got it on my next trip (only 4 months that time) so it has one star on it since it covered only one time period.