Air Force Museum
USAF Awards and Decorations
Air Force awards and decorations make acts of valor, achievement, service, and sacrifice visible through a shared system of medals, ribbons, badges, and citations. The display helps decode that visual language. Each award has formal criteria and precedence, but the object ultimately points back to a particular action, period of service, or responsibility carried by an Airman.
In depth
History & service
The U.S. Air Force bestows awards on individual military personnel and civilians in recognition of their heroism, self-sacrifice, outstanding achievement or other forms of service. Generally, awards given to individuals in recognition of personal valor are shaped like a star or cross -- like the Medal of Honor. The first U.S. award developed exclusively for Airmen was the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1926.
All too often, our grateful nation has presented awards for personal valor to those who died while performing their acts of heroism.
Other awards, usually shaped like coins, represent service in a campaign or war, or for some other notable achievement. Awards, such as the Presidential Unit Citation, recognize military units for outstanding achievements. Service medals, campaign medals, and service ribbons denote creditable military participation in a campaign, war, national emergency or expedition.
Details that tell the story
Recognizes valor, achievement, meritorious service, and campaign participation · Insignia follows formal criteria and order of precedence · Air Force-specific designs developed after the service became independent
What survives after the mission
A museum object begins a second life when it stops performing its original job. An aircraft that once carried a crew becomes a place for public memory. A jacket, letter, medal, or small piece of equipment can preserve a much more intimate connection. The object is valuable both for what it reveals physically and for the documented story that gives it meaning.
Famous aircraft and individuals can make a complicated history approachable, but they are only part of it. Many people left no celebrated machine behind. Memorials, personal possessions, unit records, and photographs help recover the experiences of those whose service was less visible. They also preserve loss, separation, captivity, recovery, and the consequences of war for families and communities.
Preservation involves choices. Restoring an aircraft may make its design easier to understand, while retaining wear or damage may protect evidence of its use. A reproduction can explain how a machine worked, provided its identity remains clear. Linking objects across collections helps fill the gaps created when surviving material is dispersed. A uniform in one gallery, an aircraft in another, and a memorial elsewhere can illuminate the same history from different directions. The result is more than a record of machines: it is a way to keep the people, decisions, and experiences connected to them in view.
