A US Air Force article highlights the story of Major Josh Brown, a KC-135 pilot who has earned his 19th Air Medal:

Brown flew his final combat sortie for this deployment July 30, qualifying him to receive the 18th oak leaf cluster for his Air Medal.

The Air Medal is awarded for single acts of heroism or meritorious achievements while participating in aerial flight in support of operations…

In layman’s terms, Air Medals are handed out for one of two things:  unique, heroic events…or for flying a certain number of sorties.

The first few Brown received in 2001-2002 were earned with only 10 combat sorties versus the 20 required now. The major…has also previously supported combat operations in Iraq as an MC-12 Liberty pilot with 120 combat sorties, as well as 14 in the C-21 supporting operations in Kosovo.

The role of tanker pilots really shouldn’t be belittled — their favorite refrain is “NKAWTG,” or “Nobody Kicks A** Without Tanker Gas.”  Nor should medals for sortie counts be categorically dismissed.  As far back as World War II, pilots kept close count of their sorties (they were used to determine who got to go home), and it appears the “unofficial official” “end of tour” medal in Vietnam was the even-more prestigious Distinguished Flying Cross.  There are multiple claims of pilots with 30 or more Air Medals, most from the Vietnam era.

Of course, in those conflicts those pilots were actually being shot at.  At certain times in World War II, some aircrew had a greater than 25% chance they wouldn’t make it back from that one mission, never mind the rest of their tour.

Thus, its difficult to look at a tanker pilot flying out of the “friendly” nation of Kyrgyzstan, refueling aircraft over the permissive skies of Afghanistan, and realistically consider that a “combat mission” worthy of recognition for “heroism or meritorious achievement” — nearly a dozen times over.

That’s not to say others are much better.  Navy F-18s might launch from the carrier, fly hours into Afghanistan and back, and only drop their ordnance into the ocean before they recover on the flight deck.  F-16s may launch out of Kandahar, orbit for a few hours, and return home having done nothing but “turned JP-8 into noise” (though they might get rocketed on the airfield for their trouble).  Each of those is a “combat mission” worthy of recognition, by some definition.

That’s also not to say tanker pilots haven’t conducted missions worthy of such recognition.  The fighter community is aware of tanker pilots taking great risk by flying their defenseless aircraft — essentially an airliner full of fuel — into the path of known air defenses to help fighters coming home from the fight who were short on fuel.  Others have used their gas, their unique equipment, and their additional crew to help coordinate rescues and recoveries following aircraft mishaps.

There’s nothing wrong with recognizing achievement.  There’s nothing wrong with sortie counts.

At some point, though, it just becomes silly.

Just ask the grunts who have to go “outside the wire” a hundred times a deployment.  Sure, they’ll get combat action medals.  They may get Purple Hearts, too.