Has anyone else noticed this? I was talking to a young man in the Air National Guard the other day, and he had three ribbons and a badge. As far as I know, he'd never served on active duty. The badge was for his MOS, don't know about the ribbons. And at a recent concert by an Air Force band, the singers and musicians would have put Audie Murphy to shame. They typically had 15-18 ribbons on their chests. I don't mean to demean these young men and women, I'm very proud of them, but it used to be that a ribbon meant something. Kind of like the "everyone in the Army wears a beret" thing.
(Full disclosure statement - I had one ribbon, National Defense, which may have been the first ribbon to start the decoration inflation outbreak, as it was commonly known then as the "I was alive in '65" ribbon. I will be the first to admit I didn't do anything to earn it, and didn't do anything that would have warranted getting any other awards.)