BBP8213: You Better Recognize

challenge coins are handed out by commanders to recognize a soldier who's done something well. kinder-gardeners get gold stars, we get coins. pretty much everyone in the chain of command, from company commander to the secretary of defense, has their own version of a challenge coin they can give out. not coin as in money, i'm not really sure why they're called coins. the challenge part comes from something we all know but i've never seen in practice. theoretically, when out somewhere, most likely a miltary ball, anyone can issue a challenge. everyone then takes out the highest coin they have and whoever wins gets drinks paid for by the losers. again, i've never actually seen this happen.

there are basically three ways to get a challenge coin. as far as i know everyone gets a company coin when returning from a deployment. the second way is that someone with a coin to issue out could be walking by and see you do something high speed and hand you one to say good job. or, a high up commander can let one of their subordinates know to pick someone worthy of a coin.

there's the history lesson. i bring this up because i recently got one (shown below) through the last method. i was originally told i was being put in for a division coin. word came down that my brigade was to select a certain number of people to receive the coin. my first sergeant nominated me and someone i work with. the nomination went up to battalion where the battalion sergeant major choose ours over the other companies in our battalion and sent it up to the brigade sergeant major who added us to the list to receive coins.

anyways, recently we had a ceremony for the presentation. everyone getting the coins formed up and waited for the 2 star in charge of the division to arrive. instead general austin (4 stars), in command of all of iraq, showed up to give us coins. he said a few words about how we're all great people then went thru the lines shaking our hands, giving us the coins and talking for a little bit. it was kinda cool.