How often is the Bronze Star awarded with a “V” device versus for meritorious service in recent U.S. conflicts?
Executive summary
Since World War II the Bronze Star Medal has been awarded in two distinct modes—a version with a “V” device for valor in combat and a version without the “V” for meritorious achievement or service in a combat theater—and in recent U.S. conflicts the vast majority of Bronze Stars have been awarded without the “V,” with official tallies showing thousands more meritorious awards than valor awards since 2001 [1] [2].
1. What the Bronze Star and the “V” mean, historically and legally
The Bronze Star Medal was established by Executive Order in 1944 and, after World War II, the Army introduced the small brass “V” to explicitly distinguish awards for valor from those for meritorious service; the “V” denotes acts of heroism or valor in conflict with an armed enemy while the Bronze Star without the device recognizes heroic or meritorious achievement or service in a combat theater that does not meet the higher threshold for valor or the Silver Star [3] [1] [4].
2. How often “V”-bearing awards occur in recent wars: the numbers
Reporting based on Defense Department and service tallies compiled in public reporting shows that since Sept. 11, 2001 roughly 3,463 Bronze Stars with the “V” device have been awarded, while Bronze Stars without the device number many times that figure—official snapshots cited in reporting put the Army’s non‑V Bronze Stars at over 50,000 and the other services combined at roughly 5,257 without the “V,” indicating that valor-designated Bronze Stars are a small minority compared with meritorious, non‑V presentations [2].
3. Why meritorious Bronze Stars were so common in Iraq and Afghanistan
Multiple policy and command practices drove the high rate of non‑V Bronze Stars in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: commanders often used the Bronze Star to recognize sustained, meritorious performance under combat conditions, and before the 2017 Pentagon awards revision the Bronze Star could be—and routinely was—used for meritorious service in theater without the “V,” producing a substantial body of awards that reflected duty and leadership more than single acts of battlefield heroism [5] [2].
4. Policy tightening, device reforms, and the attempt to re‑sharpen distinctions
In 2016–2017 the Defense Department revised its awards guidance, adding new devices (“C” for combat and “R” for remote) and tightening criteria so that recognition of valor would be more clearly identified and meritorious service in lower‑risk circumstances would be channeled to alternate awards; the policy aimed to make valor the “preeminent” recognition and to reduce the practice of awarding Bronze Stars for administrative or lower‑risk meritorious work [6] [5].
5. Criticisms, rank effects, and limits of the available data
Investigative reporting and service data have raised concerns that many meritorious Bronze Stars went disproportionately to higher ranks and to those in leadership billets rather than to lower‑grade troops in more dangerous roles, suggesting award inflation for non‑valor reasons and command-level discretion in use of the medal; however, available public counts are uneven in time and scope, and the most detailed figures cited are snapshots from reporting rather than continuously updated official databases, limiting precise trend analysis [2] [6].
6. Bottom line: how often “V” vs. non‑“V”—a concise answer
In recent U.S. conflicts the Bronze Star with a “V” for valor has been relatively rare compared to Bronze Stars awarded for meritorious service without the “V”; publicly reported figures since 2001 show only a few thousand Bronze Stars with the “V” compared with many tens of thousands of Bronze Stars presented without it, and subsequent policy changes have sought to reduce non‑valor Bronze Star awards and sharpen the distinction [2] [5].