A feeling of underappreciation . . . plaques and awards

A comment on my last blog entry got me to thinking about all of the plaques, signed pictures, medals, and awards that I “earned” while I was in the Navy. You know what? Most of them made me feel pretty underappreciated. Here are a few examples:

-- At the end of my first at-sea tour, as a young Lieutenant, my boss told me, “Write yourself up for an end-of-tour medal, and have it on my desk by next Tuesday.” I thought to myself, “Wow, you think so highly of me that you are giving me the honor of submitting my own name for an award? I’m speechless.” Now, this might come as a surprise to some of you, but in my younger days I was a bit of a smart aleck at times. I told my boss I wasn’t going to do it, and if he thought I deserved an award, he should write it up himself. (That boss didn’t like me very much, as I recall.) (Also, I would add, it was clearly obvious from a very early stage in my career that I would never make Admiral.)

-- When I first arrived at one of my Navy commands, I was informed that as a member of the Wardroom Mess (group of officers on the staff), that in addition to my monthly dues, I was required to pay $10 a month for the first three months to cover the cost of my farewell plaque (which I would receive two years later when I left the command). I felt instantly appreciated. Let me tell you, while that plaque is, at this very moment, sitting with all my other plaques in a box up in the attic, I can assure you that that one is on top of the pile!

-- Many awards and commendations I received had my name misspelled, but I kind of got used to that.

-- I was once the victim of “award inflation adjustment.” All of my predecessors at a certain job had been given a particular award for a specific measure of performance. However, when it came my time to depart, I received a lesser award. I admit, I was expecting to be recognized at the same level, and I was a little discouraged. What had I done wrong? The answer was nothing, it’s just that a senior officer deemed that the previous awards were “too high,” and the time was right to “adjust” the giving out of awards to an appropriate “representative level.” Oh well. Bad timing I guess.

From what I have just shared, you might think that I never felt appreciated in my twenty years in the Navy. But that is most definitely not the case. I have some vivid memories of specific times when I felt much appreciated, times when I received recognition that really made me feel good. But by and large, I did not receive medals or awards for those things. It’s weird, but a pretty consistent theme of my Navy career seems to be that I got plaques, awards, and medals for a lot of stuff that didn’t matter much. Yet, the things that I really cherish, the accomplishments I hold most dear, things I did that really caused people to appreciate me . . . those are the things that don’t show up in my collection of medals, ribbons, and plaques. And that is certainly okay by me.